Charles Baxter (Charles Morley Baxter) Quotes
Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly... The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over.
Quotes to Explore
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I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.
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I'm pretty much friendly and compassionate to everybody. But not to people in the ring.
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There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.
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He who eats with most pleasure is he who least requires sauce.
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I had the taste of the alcohol since I was 11. It allowed me to be clever, charming and to behave outrageously. Acting also allowed me not to be me. So I could indulge every fantasy in this paradise of America.
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I'd heard he was good, and what the hell sense does it make not to hire somebody because of their color?
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Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.
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I'll never forget the modelling shoot I did in the Bahamas on a pink sand beach at Harbour Island. It felt like I'd just landed in paradise; it was so beautiful.
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We've gone too far in thinking we can re-create an American democratic paradise in the Middle East.
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We need no messiah and no sterile conception of a god menacing us with hell and purgatory.
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Despite all the criticisms that have been leveled at the comics community, both in terms of fans and creators, I have always felt more comfortable and accepted in the comics community than I have in any other medium of publishing that I've had the pleasure of working in.
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Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
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'The Lady's World' should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure.
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You can't worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it's hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to every other moment.
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I do love one-upmanship sometimes, like when you see kids breakdancing and who can do the best tricks. It's common, it's in our nature as animals, like the birds of paradise who've got the best feathers and that sort of stuff. But it's fun when it's impulsive and it's about fun.
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Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.
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Insomnia is a vertiginous lucidity that can convert paradise itself into a place of torture.
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England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of horses.
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People used to ask me, 'What do you reckon you'll be doing when you're 40?', and I told 'em 'rocking out and kicking ass!' Now it's 'What do you reckon you'll be doing at 60?' and the answer's exactly the same. I'm always going to love Jimi Hendrix - 'Purple Haze' will still give me a hard-on when I'm hooked up to a life-support machine. Hey, even when I'm dead, they're going to have a hell of a job nailing the coffin lid down.
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For me, writing started as pleasure that became professionalized, so my relationship to it is a bit sullied. I'm working it out.
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If you want to do something, just do it. No one is going to do it for you.
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Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture... Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.
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You really can change the world if you care enough.
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Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly... The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over.
