Kamila Shamsie Quotes
No self-respecting feminist could argue with the claim that the novel is more likely to accept existing power structures than not. But there's a vast difference, surely, between Dickens saying Indians should be exterminated and a Dave Eggers writing eloquently about the NSA, but not being as outspoken on American military power abroad.
Quotes to Explore
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If you make a film too American, it won't travel. It will have no life outside of its own country.
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I've always written songs that were confessional, acoustic, wordy - my writing style matches my personality. The music always has to match the mouth it comes out of.
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I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.
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The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.
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After Brown, I went to Duke, to a Ph.D. program in American literature. My dad's an English professor. After a year there, I was like, 'Jesus. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be in the library.' So I pulled the ripcord, and that was it.
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The most important thing Paris gave me was a perspective on Latin America. It taught me the differences between Latin America and Europe and among the Latin American countries themselves through the Latins I met there.
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I read my books to writing workshops and friends, and I'm often focussed just on keeping them entertained. I never think about marketing at all.
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I am just doing photo shoots. It's not something that extraordinary. I'm not a great artist, I'm not writing books, I'm not a painter, and people in the streets ask me for a picture or a note, and I say, 'Why?'
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The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.
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When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want.
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You sit at your computer for hours, then slave away at your job that you may or may not like. You don't know how to explain to them that the time when you feel alive or present is when you are writing.
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Funny is a good foil. Humor is illuminating, and it also gives you power.
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The government of Iran has no problem with the American nation.
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The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's very romantic in that way, but a bit naive. I like to play with that in my work.
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I love Jet Li, but he looks very Chinese, and his English is Chinese-accented. He wouldn't have been the right guy to play a Japanese-American.
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First off, I could never become a doctor. Blood? Even the fake blood on 'American Horror Story,' I'm kind of ready to hurl.
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I've been extremely fortunate in my life. So I actually believe that I'm the living embodiment of living the American dream.
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There aren't a lot of 'Aha!' moments in writing.
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I feel much more comfortable in politics than I did in book writing. Book writing is so hard. Politics felt easy compared to that.
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When you are the invisible man to the head coach, the only option is to head for the exit.
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I kinda lose my mind in 'Fringe,' or at least my character does. Whenever I'm acting, I tend to accidentally become unable to switch off the character. I'm a little bit of a method actor, but without really wanting to be.
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Years on, Christine and John still have a deep love for each other, as do Stevie and I - we've been working together since I was 17.
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No self-respecting feminist could argue with the claim that the novel is more likely to accept existing power structures than not. But there's a vast difference, surely, between Dickens saying Indians should be exterminated and a Dave Eggers writing eloquently about the NSA, but not being as outspoken on American military power abroad.
