Karl Shapiro Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I've always liked stories. I'm always reading, ever since I was a kid. I've always been reading and wanting to be in some other world. This is the perfect job for me.
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Like a cyclone, imperialism spins across the globe; militarism crushes peoples and sucks their blood like a vampire.
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I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting.
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When it comes to production and the overall sound, I don't really have a lot of intentions with it. I start off with melody and a lyrical idea, and then build off of that story.
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I don't buy art to put away somewhere. I buy art to appreciate, enjoy, and live with. It's supposed to add to your life.
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Not even analysis, by itself, can transform you. You must still do the changing yourself.
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The French are pretty thin-skinned. The few times I mentioned a French writer in 'City Boy,' the relatives would ring up in high dudgeon. I once wrote a mocking review of Marguerite Duras in the 'New York Review of Books,' and good friends of mine in France got very angry.
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I hated school because I liked to daydream and the system tried to stop me from that.
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And when did mere preaching do any good? Put something in the place of these things. Fill the vacuum of the mind.
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Humility is the gateway into the grace and the favor of God.
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There's times when you're having dinner with a good friend and you're in the middle of a conversation and somebody comes up and cuts you off. Can you sign this? Can I take a picture with you? I'm adjusting to all the attention.
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I don't care whether you use natural gas, ethanol, the battery. You can use anything, just so it's American.
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One guy that I wish was here right now, Ted Williams, helped me so much, our long talks, not about hitting but about fishing, one of Ted's passions, and I wish he was here today to share this with me because I owe so much to Ted Williams.
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I used to think that, by the 21st century, cars would run on electricity rather than gasoline and would have guidance systems so that they actually drove themselves. Specially equipped roadways would transmit instructions to the cars, telling them where to go and how fast. I figured this would be in the lines painted on the roads.
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I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world, but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well, and it's an ongoing creative assignment.
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With a film, you can get into it and love it. With music, you can listen to over and over again, but with music videos, they're like this short little stab.
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There's an awful lot of terrible television which I could do, but I mostly stick to Have I Got News for You.
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Perfect is very boring, and if you happen to have a different look, that's a celebration of human nature, I think. If we were all symmetrical and perfect, life would be very dull.
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So deep and meaningful is the joy and the enthusiasm that is born in one's mind and heart by human love and helpfulness that it has the power to motivate for a lifetime. . . . You don't have to be a doctor to say or do that which puts light in a human eye or joy on a human face. Simply practice Jesus' commandment that we love one another. Go out and do something for somebody. These are the things that make happy people. Here is the one never-failing source of the joy and enthusiasm we are talking about.
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It's a rough and tumble game whenever power is involved - people's ambitions, their desires, their competitive spirit will often push them to play outside the rules. It's dramatic, it's interesting, and I think it's something we can all identify with to a degree.
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I am a big fan of the old Howard Hawks films from the 30s and 40s, I was a big Hepburn and Tracey fan for a while and Woody Allen films that are a very different kind of romantic comedy.
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The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.
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The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day's last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night.
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My soul is now her day, my day her night, So I lie down, and so I rise.
