Ben Lerner Quotes
The story and the poem are obviously changed by being placed in the novel, so in a sense they're no longer the works that preceded the novel.
Quotes to Explore
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I don't know how much the economy has changed since Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal.'
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I joined the Actors Studio and began to work with Lee Strasberg, and that changed my work.
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Not everybody goes to movies to get their life changed.
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The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced.
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I've learnt that, even though I've travelled about, I haven't changed that much.
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Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft.
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Love Me Do, the first song we recorded, John was supposed to sing the lead, but they changed their minds and asked me to sing lead because they wanted John to play harmonica.
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The strange thing about writing is that it's so easy to write a novel. It is really easy. But it's getting there to the point where it's easy that's hard. The hard part is to get there.
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The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem.
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When I write a novel, every word is mine. I welcome suggestions from my editor, but in the end, I make all the final decisions.
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When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.
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What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.
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A poem may be an instance of morality, of social conditions, of psychological history; it may instance all its qualities, but never one of them alone, nor any two or three; never less than all.
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We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.
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I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle, seems strained to the breaking point. The poem will not be denied; to refuse to write it would be a greater torture. It tears its way out of the brain, splintering and breaking its passage, and leaves that organ in the state of a jelly-fish when the task is done.
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Homer must have felt this pressure to come up with an epic poem that would sound totally new to an audience that had loved his previous best-seller.
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I beg your pardon I didn't recognise you - I've changed a lot.
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The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.
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We have to diversify, we have to find work we can do that helps other people while helping ourselves, work that has to do with writing that isn't necessarily just writing saleable novels or getting huge advances.
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A work of art is great to the extent that to encounter it is to be changed.
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Morality is not respectability.
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With the country moving toward inclusion, the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have instead sent a message to young people that only some of them are valued. They've chosen to teach division and intolerance.
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The story and the poem are obviously changed by being placed in the novel, so in a sense they're no longer the works that preceded the novel.
