Teju Cole Quotes
The Australian Gerald Murnane, a genius on the level of Beckett, is known in Australia and Sweden but almost nowhere else. And I loved Reality Hunger, David Shields' recent novel take on the art of the novel.
Quotes to Explore
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I wanted my children to have the same exposure to the water I had. My strongest memories of Northeast Harbor are going in a small Whaler with my dad, looking for osprey.
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I don't have a telephone. If I had a lot of money, I wouldn't have one.
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I find the whole situation of confronting an audience terrifying.
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Not long ago I made a list of Doc Ford books I would like to do, and I came up with 11 pretty easily. I like to let the characters go their own ways and see what happens. I find them fascinating.
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All I remember is the last time I played a videogame, it was Space Invaders.
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But, I couldn't live without creation gymnastics.
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The ability to calibrate risk doesn't happen rationally.
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When you do something with a lot of honesty, appetite and commitment, the input reflects in the output.
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The most common criticism I've seen is that I write 'popcorn fantasy:' lightweight action-adventure. Some people call it that as they explain why they love it for exactly that reason. I'm cool with that, either way. I just nod and let it go.
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Everybody wants to defeat the defending champs.
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Films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is. You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in.
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If you want to humble an empire, it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe.
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I was four when I announced my ambition to write, eight when I began publishing such claims.
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I couldn't do what I do day-in and day-out if I didn't love the game.
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I'll never look down on and I love running into actors who say 'Oh yeah, I did a soap.' I say 'Tell me which one!' It's like being a member of a secret society.
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Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.
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I used to see media on Althea Flynt and she was very wild looking. She had a mohawk and she published Hustler-I thought that was crazy. But when you study her, she was so innocent and frail and sort of birdlike, and sweet. She stayed sweet until she died, but I don't know what happened for her to get into drugs or the things she got into.
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We thought we were going to go up against SNL on Saturday Nights - that would have changed things so much that it's almost impossible to speculate what might have happened.
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New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.
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I paint abstract expressions.
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I moved to L.A. and really didn't dig living there until I found places like Koreatown and Little Tokyo. I really like hanging out in the grocery stores and restaurants.
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A man who possesses genius is insufferable unless he also possesses at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.
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You collect art: you must know that the miniature artists, at the end of careers spent painting the tiniest, most exacting details that no one would ever look at, would often put their eyes out with needles. Too much beauty, yes, but also too much seeing. They were tired of seeing. The dark was safe and warm and comfortable. Blindness was a gift. I still have seeing to do.
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The Australian Gerald Murnane, a genius on the level of Beckett, is known in Australia and Sweden but almost nowhere else. And I loved Reality Hunger, David Shields' recent novel take on the art of the novel.
