Oliver Burkeman Quotes
Through positive thinking and related approaches, we seek the safety and solid ground of certainty, of knowing how the future will turn out, of a time in the future when we'll be ceaselessly happy and never have to fear negative emotions again. But in chasing all that, we close down the very faculties that permit the happiness we crave.
Quotes to Explore
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We think of writing a book as a process, but the very word - process - suggests that there is one: a template to follow, a map to guide us. If that were true, someone would have surely figured out some marketable method we could all buy.
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I voted for Barack Obama.
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I am a massive fan of early electronica like Steve Reich, Pat Metheny and Thomas Dolby. I used to be a big raver, too, so anything dance. I love ambient music like Tunng. I love acoustic and classical, too.
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One can't do anything alone in Haiti. Sharing and cooperation are so deeply woven into the culture that sometimes it's hard to have a separate thought.
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Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
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My work is not so much a direct commentary as it is an open-ended observation of the absurdities around us.
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There was always the consolation that if I didn't like what I wrote I could throw it away or burn it.
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There is no diplomacy like candor.
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For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.
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I can remember the first time I ever recorded my vocals on to a beat. Cat Coore from Third World - a legendary Jamaican band - had a little demo set up at his house. I'm very good friends with his eldest son, Shiah, who plays with me now. So we were rhyming over a track by the dancehall artist Peter Metro. I've still got it somewhere.
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In the wealthy industrialized nations, effective drug therapies against AIDS became available - AZT as early as 1987, then combinations of antiretroviral agents in 1996. The new drugs offered hope that fatal complications might be staved off and AIDS rendered a chronic condition.
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I just kept it real and had the freedom to do what I want. It's not designed for any age group. It's not made for radio. There are no edits. The whole album contains explicit lyrics but that's because you need it.
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When you listen to my music, you hear that there are all these voices going on in different parts of the song. That's because I was always around so many voices in church.
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I happen to think singing is hilarious, especially when it pops out at the wrong time.
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But I have had the luxury of working on good films with great people.
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I am meeting Diaspora Jews all the time, and we are developing programmes to prevent distancing. We have a joint history, but we cannot take matters for granted. Israel is home for all of us, and part of the beauty of the country is its social diversity.
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I've been a supporter of green initiatives for years. I've been paying more and more attention to it, you know, with three kids. I thought it was tragic when the Kyoto Protocol was killed by the U.S. It was sort of a call to action.
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I think social media, it in a way forces companies to be more authentic or more transparent because it gives a voice to the consumer and a reach to the consumer that they didn't have before.
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Refinement is the lifting of one's self upwards from the merely sensual; the effort of the soul to etherealize the common wants and uses of life.
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Don't listen to what the Communists say, but look at what they do.
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People don't understand that all presidents, the minute they become president, get a knock at the door. And there's a man there saying, 'Let's talk about your funeral.' At the time I thought, God, that's a terrible thing. Later on, I thought it was pretty wise.
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The modern state appeals to morality, to religion, and to natural law as the ideological foundation of its existence. At the same time it is prepared to infringe any or all of these in the interest of self-preservation.
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I don't feel like God called me to be a gospel singer. He didn't call me to be a Christian singer; he called me to be a country singer, and I just happen to be a Christian.
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Through positive thinking and related approaches, we seek the safety and solid ground of certainty, of knowing how the future will turn out, of a time in the future when we'll be ceaselessly happy and never have to fear negative emotions again. But in chasing all that, we close down the very faculties that permit the happiness we crave.
