Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance - and I come by this naturally, or I think I do - I am a very good judge of character.
Quotes to Explore
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Of course I get angry, but I want to use my brain a little bit and not just smash things.
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The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.
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I know what it's like not to have food in the fridge or money to buy more.
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R. Kelly is a thing on TV, but nobody knows Robert and what he's been through.
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Every designer needs a story. Mine is all about glamour because my family has been in the business of glamour for three generations. My grandfather Shamshuddin Khan started his embroidery and fabric-making business in the 1930s.
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I had admired Richard Burton for years and years before I had ever worked with him. He was a great, great actor. It was a joy to get to know him as a person.
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No writer of a portion of the Bible was perfect. It was the direct and miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit that what they wrote is without mistake.
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My mom has every issue of 'Billboard' I've ever been in.
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The whole point of having great characters is the opportunity to explore them more deeply with time, re-interpreting them for each new age.
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I didn't like the idea of changing myself for the industry. I felt to have my teeth straightened and bleached and to starve myself to change my body was not respecting who I was.
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When you think of Hollywood, you think of the land of opportunity. I always want to have the opportunity to do things conducive to my career.
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Love is made by two people, in different kinds of solitude. It can be in a crowd, but in an oblivious crowd.
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Fashion is about dreaming and making other people dream.
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I actually am very hands-off on my face. I like to use oil to take everything off, and then I cleanse after.
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I love eating shabu-shabu in Japan - a kind of beef hotpot. But if you're talking about authentic, traditional food, then Italian cooking is one of the best in the world.
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The devadasis have a multilayered story, a story in which poverty, deprivation and injustice against women is central - but what has happened to them is absolutely an outcome of imperialism and the impact of British rule in India.
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My parents have always had pretty high expectations, but they're very supportive.
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I have always respected how Bobby Bowden would go out and challenge any opponent, and he produced some legendary games against the University of Miami and Notre Dame.
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I'm paranoid. On my stationary bike, I have a rear view mirror.
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It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.
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Pedro Teixeira, the great Portuguese merchant-adventurer, wrote a beautiful description of a coffeehouse with windows overlooking the Tigris and the ruins of old Baghdad. That was in 1604, and he's visiting the same street that I write about in the book, named after Abu Nuwas, though it wasn't called that back then.
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I don't concentrate on any one period of history; I like to locate my stories in wildly different eras and places. I seem to be drawn to large, sprawling, uncomfortable swaths of American history, finding embedded within them a tight narrative that involves strife, heroism, and survival under difficult circumstances.
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It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance - and I come by this naturally, or I think I do - I am a very good judge of character.
