Ilan Stavans Quotes

'The New World Haggadah' is meant for American Jews in the 21st century.

Ilan Stavans

• World
• American
• Jews

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• This is who I am: a flyspeck of human vanity in a trillion miles of stone-dead interstellar space; a graceless lump of flesh and fear in a remote desert where nearly everything that I can see or touch is designed to hurt me.

  

  S. C. Gwynne
  • Fear
  • Space
  • Hurt

• At the end of the day, every decision I make about my music is about creating a collective.

  

  Halsey
  • Music
  • Day
  • Decision

• I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.

  

  Babe Ruth
  • Up
  • Women
  • Fun

• Warren Beatty once told me that if someone's really stuck on you, find them their next boyfriend. But I could never do that.

  

  Val Kilmer
  • Me
  • Never
  • Find

• The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.

  

  Frances Farmer
  • School
  • True
  • Pretty

• I never had teenage years. I guess because I was seen to be more adult than anybody around me.

  

  Patrick Stewart
  • Me
  • Never
  • Guess

• I am not the only intense or intellectual cricketer. I played with other cricketers who could be pretty intense and intellectual.

  

  Rahul Dravid
  • Intellectual
  • Intense
  • Cricketer

• Writing is only the frosting on my cake. I'm whole without it.

  

  Tabitha King
  • Writing
  • Without
  • Cake

• Breaking the world record in '92 was a very special personal moment, but I'd say my favorite moment as a decathlete was winning the Olympic gold medal. It was a lot of years of work, and when I won it, it was more a sense of relief than jubilation or exaltation.

  

  Dan O'Brien
  • World
  • Work
  • Winning

• I can do whatever I want.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • Want
  • I Can
  • Whatever

• I can never believe how much time and energy and money and talent and everything else is being poured into horrible ideas.

  

  Walter Becker Steely Dan
  • Time
  • Believe
  • Money

• When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it's because he's so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.

  

  Walt Disney
  • People
  • Laugh
  • Mickey Mouse

• I turn people into human beings by not making them into gods.

  

  Imogen Cunningham
  • People
  • Human
  • Turn

• A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.

  

  Carlos Castaneda
  • Thinking
  • Man
  • Knowledge

• I must be honest here; I don't think there's such a thing as 'unconventional' when it comes to YA. YA readers are the most open-minded in the literary world. They'll read anything.

  

  Rae Carson
  • World
  • Think
  • Open-minded

• Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape.

  

  Yusef Komunyakaa
  • Important
  • Respect
  • Poetry

• I'd say it's even harder to cater to Hispanics than to the lesbian or gay community. We're so culturally separated: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Venezuelans. We're all so different.

  

  Carlos Ponce
  • Different
  • Community
  • Gay

• To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering 'I want to be white,' hidden in the aspirations of his people, to 'Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!'

  

  Langston Hughes
  • People
  • Mind
  • Why

• I was joking earlier when I said that all writers are manic depressives, but it's a joke with a lot of truth behind it. For fiction writers and poets, too, there's something wrong with you and you do this art as a way of correcting it or addressing it in some way.

  

  T. C. Boyle
  • Art
  • Truth

• I know it's a cliche, but I see myself as a citizen of the world. I was brought up in Switzerland by German and Turkish parents but I've very much grown up in San Francisco. I have a European sense of aesthetic, but I'm also deeply steeped in the notion of change and entrepreneurship that is associated with Silicon Valley.

  

  Yves Behar
  • Up
  • World
  • Parents

• The world of this is a load of crap. You get all these bloody people, so incredibly sycophantic.

  

  Charlie Watts The Rolling Stones
  • People
  • World

• Let's face it: dancing isn't one of my strong points.

  

  Jim Nabors
  • Strong

• I remember being told very early on, 'Just say what they want to hear in the audition, and we'll figure it out later on.' So there have been a few tricky moments. I once said I could ride, when the truth is I'm terrified of horses, but I got the job!

  

  Oliver Jackson-Cohen
  • Job
  • Truth
  • Remember

• 'The New World Haggadah' is meant for American Jews in the 21st century.

  

  Ilan Stavans
  • World
  • American
  • Jews