Charles Baxter (Charles Morley Baxter) Quotes
The truth is that I'm never sure how any of my books will be received, and because I can be thin-skinned, I try not to read too many reviews when a book first comes out.
Quotes to Explore
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I've been quite fascinated by the relative insignificance of human existence, the shortness of life. We might as well be a letter in a word in a sentence on a page in a book in a library in a city in one country in this enormous universe! And that kind of fear and insignificance has kept me awake at night.
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Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone.
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I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people.
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In my downtime, you'll mostly find me curled up with a book. I love reading biographies. My favourites are those of Dalai Lama, Osama Bin Laden, and Einstein.
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Reparations, I believe, are talked about for political reasons, trying to cater for the purpose of getting votes. If Congress was serious about reparations - in '93 and '94 the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House, and not one single Republican vote was needed for reparations.
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We're not trying to make you less of a man. We just want you to love us as deeply and as wholesomely and as fully as we love you.
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Every day, you get up, and the world is changing; your customers are expecting more from you. Your competitors are putting pressure on you by doing more and trying to beat you here and beat you there.
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I veer away from trying to understand why I act. I just know I need to do it.
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In boxing, there are no bad guys or good guys. Just people trying to make a living and trying to live up to their pride and to try to become someone.
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I don't burn any calories trying to be masculine; I just happen to be from that world.
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No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you're perceived to be doing, your job is never done. Every day, you get up and the world is changing; your customers are expecting more from you. Your competitors are putting pressure on you by doing more and trying to beat you here and beat you there.
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Many critics, when trying to praise a short-story collection, will say that it has the heft and scope of a good novel. But for me, one of the highest compliments you can pay a novel is to say that it has the rich texture and eloquent detail of a good story collection.
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A subject which at first glance seems quite removed from the undeclared concern of the book can encapsulate that concern.
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Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.
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We have got into Indian railways and are trying to get into the railway locomotive business in Europe and the United States.
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I don't like giving names to generations. It's like trying to read the song title on a record that's spinning.
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The spot paintings and spin paintings were trying to find mechanical ways to make paintings.
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What I'm trying to do, in my own small way, is trying to bring African and Afro-Cuban rhythms into rock.
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There's a difference between publicity and marketing. A lot of writers don't realize how much marketing goes on beyond the scenes, with sales reps and advanced reading copies, all that stuff that happens months before a book is published.
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Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.
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Controversy What controversy This is reality. What I see is that no matter if you're a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you stand on, this is the reality of the situation - that people's families and their young kids are being affected.
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Back when Napster first came along, I started telling everybody Napster was like shooting yourself in the foot because you're stealing music. The record companies don't pay for us to make records - the bands do.
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What would it be like to live in a library of melted books. With sentences streaming over the floor and all the punctuation settled to the bottom as a residue. It would be confusing. Unforgivable. A great adventure.
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The truth is that I'm never sure how any of my books will be received, and because I can be thin-skinned, I try not to read too many reviews when a book first comes out.
