Stephen Spender (Sir Stephen Harold Spender) Quotes
A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.

Quotes to Explore
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Burroughs called his greatest novel 'Naked Lunch,' by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. Telling the truth. It's very difficult to do that in fiction because the whole process of writing fiction is a process of sidestepping the truth. I think he got very close to it, in his way, and I hope I've done the same in mine.
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Your mind is what makes everything else work.
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I have never thought of a full-fledged career in Bollywood because boxing has never left my mind. But you never know.
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Dancing has always been a passion of mine.
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The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.
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One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing. I did that with 'World's Fair,' as with all of them. The inventions of the book come as discoveries.
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I just like a good story. I want the story to be good, and I want the character to be different than the last one I played. That's not always possible, but that's what I want.
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I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.
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The reason I dislike talking about the creative process is that I do have a creative process that is a winner and it's a sure thing.
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A writer has a difficult fate, but a Jewish writer has an especially difficult fate. His soul is torn; he lives on two streets with three languages. It is a misfortune to live on this sort of 'border,' and that is what I have experienced.
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Just as it got easier to use email, it will be easier to use Bitcoin as people invest in it and become more familiar with it.
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When you go on an audition it's very frightening.
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I want to go against the best fighters. That's why I'm always calling out Georges St-Pierre. I don't have anything against Georges St-Pierre. I think he's a great fighter.
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The nurses were all angels in my eyes.
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Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic; it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation.
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Prospects of normalizing our relations with Russia look good.
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Wij leven allen, maar weten niet waarom en waarvoor, wij leven allen met het doel gelukkig te worden, we leven allen verschillend en toch gelijk.
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Seville never had a rich chess tradition. Valencia is entirely different, it is enough to say that one of the city squares is named after me.
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You can't just release double albums and expect people to sit there and devote their time to it.
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It's okay to lose your pride over someone you love. Don't lose someone you love though over your pride!
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I really can't believe what a state the Pyramids are in. I thought they had flat rendered sides, but when you get up close, you see how they are just giant boulders balanced on top of each other, like a massive game of Jenga that has got out of hand.
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Tom Cruise is one of the most wonderful, kind, and generous men that I've ever met.
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A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.