William Boyd Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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At 21 years old, I could produce 400 people like that.
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I don't choose to make movies as small as the movies I've made. The combined budget of my two films is far under $5 million, but it's just by necessity that it ends up being that way.
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I'm from New York. My grandparents were settlers of Long Island City. When they came here, there was no bridge, and they had to hire a boat across the river. They had a farm, and my grandmother had to go once a week to Manhattan to buy provisions - very primitive.
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Reason cannot calm the storm of emotion, and emotion usually wins, until it settles down and allows reason to rise again and apologize on behalf of it.
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What is extraordinary about contemporary art is the energy - it has our energy. New energy. Pieces hundreds of years old are beautiful from an aesthetic point of view, but without our modern energy.
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I don't feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there's something that I really did do. I believe I'm just ordinary. And I'd like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.
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Give the peasants neither life nor death.
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In Latin America, even atheists are Catholics.
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Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed; he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.
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This is America, not a banana republic.
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I'm not terribly confrontational, but I've gotten better at holding my ground.
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I was at a book convention, in a cab. On one side of me was Arthur Schlesinger; on the other side was William Manchester - real heavyweights. All they were doing was asking me about Charles Manson. The only thing that enables me not to be bored is the people talking about it - they're so interested.
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I think that dwelling on other people's perception of you is the road to complete madness, unfortunately. I try and resist that.
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Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'
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Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.
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Likewise, education can direct people toward good or evil ends. When education is based on a fundamentally distorted worldview, the results are horrific.
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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
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I'm going to be shaking my booty when I'm 55.
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The intelligence of the universe is social.
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I believe artists should be able to step into other people's situations, contexts and cultures and work from there. If artists don't have that freedom, then, as someone has said, are we all writing our autobiographies?
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A girl’s got to use what she’s given and I’m not going to make a guy drool the way a Britney video does. So I take it to extremes. I don’t say I dress sexily on stage - what I do is so extreme. It’s meant to make guys think: ‘I don’t know if this is sexy or just weird.
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How can you have any regret when everything worked out fine? But why I think it worked out fine is due to the lessons I learned along the way. And one of those involves listening to experts.
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I’m not against thinking; I’m only against thinking that thinking on its own will get you out of a hole. Shovel also needed.
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I don't think they'll ever make a retro Bond.
