William Boyd Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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What novels do that biographies don't is get at truths by penetrating the facts, by going deeper to what's underneath fact, through invention.
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The Lebanese people voted this time for change. So they are not satisfied with the actual situation. They want to see a new government. They want to see a new vision.
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I was a tomboy.
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Golf is played with the arms.
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I can't take the theater side out of myself.
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I was 12 years old when I had my first job, delivering packages.
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Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading.
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I was famous from the age of 13, and after a while you become immune to it - in a good way. You look at positives and what you can do with it.
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Since the dawn of recorded music, every generation has felt shocked by the musical tastes of the next.
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I hardly ever write when I'm just feeling great.
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I'm obviously really opinionated, but as a producer, you don't necessarily want the person you're working with to try to impress you - you want them to just be themselves. Then you can edit or mess around with what they've come up with. But you have to allow the artist that space.
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There's a time that may come in an organization where leading by influence is not enough. When things are not going the way they need to go, there's a time when one has to step up... to set the organization back on the right direction.
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Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
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National independence, and the preceding political struggles, helped create the space for literary creation in many post-colonial countries. Much of modern Indian or Chinese literature is inconceivable without the political movement for freedom from foreign rule.
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Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night.
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I can relax in L.A. I think I'm the only person in that town who doesn't want to act. I was an OK singer. I was an OK dancer. But acting? Never could do it.
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I know that there are many things I could do, but I'm not interested. It's more important to be loving and to have a lively mind.
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Factoring in millions of people when I'm writing a song is not a good idea. I don't ever do it.
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Because doing the right thing is not the goal, doing the best thing is what you must strive for.
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Sometimes, when you have someone behind the counter who's supposed to assist you and help you out, just being completely bored and uninterested - sometimes it's a little bit frustrating, you know?
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I don't know. I just feel stuck, like I'm afraid to take any steps, in case they're the wrong ones.
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One of the things that I think makes me successful is the way in which I collaborate with others. In my opinion, nothing great is ever the product of one mind. It's always a consequence of some sort of self-critical collaboration.
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Sometimes limbo is a tolerable place to be stuck.