Michael Dirda Quotes
[Kurt] Vonnegut was a writer whose great gift was that he always seemed to be talking directly to you. He wasn't writing, he wasn't showing off, he was just telling you, nobody else, what it was like, what it was all about. That intimacy made him beloved. We can admire the art of John Updike or Philip Roth, but we love Vonnegut.
Quotes to Explore
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I don't want to spoil the magic, but it's a very curious thing that honestly baffles me. It's the nearest we'll ever get to playing God, to suddenly produce these fully formed creatures. It is a bit odd. Other aspects you work out more - you rework sentences, you rework imagery. But not characters.
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I had no interest in sports so I didn't make friends in that traditional way where kids are in public school and they go and they join clubs, and play sports. So I kind of had to find my own way to make friends and get attention and so I just was the class clown.
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I am always dabbling in new skin routines, but it's always about moisture.
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The Russians are very much more up and down than the French.
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In my early 20s I was so miserable doing construction, I wanted something that paid money. I liked nice stuff. I liked cars and architecture, and things that cost money. I wanted to not swing a hammer, and make money... and not do stuff that was dirty. I attempted to get into comedy. I started to do stand-up, but I wasn't very good at it.
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Our music has been an incredible gift to help us make a difference.
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At the end of the day, the position is just a position, a title is just a title, and those things come and go. It's really your essence and your values that are important.
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I always prefer other people's interpretations over my own, so I'm not very quick to make explicit what exactly a song or record is about.
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If I were running against Chuck Schumer. I would take every one of his Sunday press releases - and there are 52 for as many years as he's been there - and I would ask, 'How many of the things he said he was proposing became law?' I doubt many.
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I think most Americans don't really care about politicians bickering in Washington.
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A barrier for me – which has been both a strength and a weakness – has been my taste. The kind of things I'm interested in aren't always mainstream.
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But 'Cuban Linx' was a project that really needed to come, and I really wanted to get it off my chest because I know that the fans were really skeptical about it, like 'is this really gonna be what it's supposed to be?' So once everybody caught it for what it was and everybody was happy, that's mission accomplished for me.
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Directing is the ultimate way to bring together all the art forms I've been involved with over the years.
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I just would like to be challenged. I want to push myself to the limit, and constantly challenge myself and grow as an artist. That's where I want to go. Explore different things, different characters, in film, and just everything!
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On a practical level, poetry isn't something anybody has really made a great living at. I might sell some books and, once in a while, someone might pay to hear me read.
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The best reduction, the most final reduction, is to destroy the warheads.
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I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.
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In the 1970s, New York City avoided bankruptcy because wise political leaders like Gov. Hugh L. Carey believed both in strong labor unions and robust banks and companies.
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Any time you get to do a David Mamet play, it's a great opportunity. His writing is such that I think it's a big challenge, but when you get it right, it's a great opportunity to play every night, really.
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I think decor says a lot about someone's social position, their taste, their sensibility, their work - and also about the aesthetic way I have chosen to tell their story.
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Our party has known great, great days. But we have no God-given right to survive, let alone to succeed.
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Actually, the British boarding school experience turns out to be not that exotic.
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We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.
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[Kurt] Vonnegut was a writer whose great gift was that he always seemed to be talking directly to you. He wasn't writing, he wasn't showing off, he was just telling you, nobody else, what it was like, what it was all about. That intimacy made him beloved. We can admire the art of John Updike or Philip Roth, but we love Vonnegut.
