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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In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.
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Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.
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I am saying this with all humility. I know him (Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad). I love him as a father and a leader. I have fought against him. And now I accept that he is the best man to lead Malaysia now.
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To live is often only to have a choice of several despairs.
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"She's a very charming and delightful creature," quoth Mr. Robert Sawyer, in reply; "and has only one fault that I know of, Ben. It happens, unfortunately, that that single blemish is a want of taste. She don't like me."
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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.
