Scarlett Thomas Quotes
I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.
Quotes to Explore
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Other families who are poor do what they can to get out of it. My mother did not. She did not utilise her resources. She had a degree. There was something she could have done, but she actively, purposely refused that so we could have this absolutely authentic experience of the worst of capitalism: 'See? Look how bad capitalism is.'
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Russians not only vehemently despise blacks, they believe Africa begins at the Ukraine border.
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I'm most honest about writing when I'm talking to family or friends, not to newspapers.
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I love gardening, and I love cooking. I love things like that. I love creating things.
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The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
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People don't know how to behave in public anymore.
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The world is full of opportunities - every day there's something new that you can do. For example, you could make dirty water potable. Why does anyone not have potable water? Because it's a problem that hasn't been solved yet, but it can be.
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What's wrong with Hell's Kitchen? You don't change a neighborhood by changing its name. You change it by building a school.
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When I was in Beck's world, I felt like the little sister. I'm in the big brother's room with all his friends. You just hang out and keep your mouth shut so they don't realize you're there and kick you out. I like being in situations where I can be an underdog, where I can be in the corner and observe and soak it in.
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You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.
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I am smarter because I stayed in school, and I am a better football player.
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I played English football - soccer - instead of American football, because we couldn't afford the equipment.
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What makes us Americans is something more than just the circumstances of birth, what we look like, what God we worship, but rather it is a joyful spirit of citizenship. Citizenship demands participation and responsibility, and service to our country and to one another. And few embody that more than our men and women in uniform.
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I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.
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When you first arrive in India, you think, 'God, these Indians treat their servants so badly! How awful!' It's something in the air, and something about the way people are, that very few people hold out. I wasn't able to. Everybody goes local. You stop saying 'thank you' and things like that.
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Faced with the evidence, many deniers have started to admit that global warming is real, but argue that humans have little or nothing to do with it.
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You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to 'Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,' then your body says, 'Who me?'
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Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, 'Don't try.' That fits the writing, too. I don't try; I just type.
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The human condition comprehends more than the condition under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence. The world in which the vita activa spends itself consists of things produced by human activities; but the things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers.
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People didn't feel so much shame around it and that they didn't feel so much humiliation around it. And the other thing that people have given me a lot of feedback about - something I'm very excited about - is all the stuff around chemo as an "empathetic warrior."
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I kind of do think of myself as a superhero and just flying high, and doing these crazy flips.
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I never, ever would have imagined the kind of career I've had. It just wouldn't have occurred to me that anything like this could have been possible. I didn't have any such aspirations. And I still can't believe my good fortune.
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If you put out 150 percent, then you can always expect 100 percent back. That's what I was always told as a kid, and It's worked for me so far!
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I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.
