Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
The kind of smile that has kept a froggy, dark sort of surprise in its back pocket, and won’t spoil it too soon.
Quotes to Explore
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I've never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that - of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.
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The only way to find out why someone decides to engage in armed combat is to look at their individual personality.
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The Nobel Peace Prize has always been a joke - albeit a grim one. Alfred Bernhard Nobel famously invented dynamite and felt sorry about it.
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If I focus on being an activist and my job is to be a rapper, I'm not going to be as good of a rapper. I need to focus on hip-hop and focus on making the music, so that when the activists come to me and they need my voice to create a platform, then I've got enough people listening to me. Not because I'm conscious, but because I'm dope.
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I didn't want the public in my personal life at all - I thought that people might perceive me as too normal, and I'd lose that larger-than-life rock star persona. You've got to protect that!
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To me, 'The End of the Jews' - both the title and the novel itself - is about the end of pat, uncritical ways of understanding oneself in the world.
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Now we have new tools for exploring the deep and have to pull together a deep exploration program that takes advantage of them.
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When in doubt, do it.
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There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
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I always think that struggle can bring out the best in people - or the worst.
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I have done my time living on the run. I'm British and I want to come home.
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And of course, pop music is all about memorability and simplicity and positive messages and a little dash of joy.
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Traditional broadcast media seems old-fashioned and vague to me. When I watch television news, I'm aware of what skilled journalists they are, but I find it hard because of the corny way they present it.
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Terrorism is a psychological warfare. Terrorists try to manipulate us and change our behavior by creating fear, uncertainty, and division in society.
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Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt … we are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We're here to hold the radical line.
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Even the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance, has gotten much briefer. Wagner's Ring Cycle takes four days to perform while 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm' by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little more than three minutes.
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Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.
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I have visited (Burma) and I know that there is only one instrument of government, and that is the army...If I were Aung San Suu Kyi, I think I'd rather be behind a fence and be a symbol than after two or three years, be found impotent.
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It's the best honor when someone wants to use as their professional title the name of a character that you portrayed.
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Learning from mistakes and constantly improving products is a key in all successful companies.
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Anything above 40 is a little too old for me. I just look for a girl who is funny and has nice eyes and a smile.
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The books were a private part of me that I carried inside and guarded and didn't talk to anybody about; as long as I had the books I could convince myself I was different from the others and my life wasn't quite as stupid and pointless.
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The kind of smile that has kept a froggy, dark sort of surprise in its back pocket, and won’t spoil it too soon.
