Charles D'Ambrosio (Charles Anthony D'Ambrosio, Jr) Quotes
My instinct tells me "purpose" is maybe the enemy of a good personal essay. In my own experience, I'm always lost and wandering and searching - where am I? how'd I get in this mess? what's the point? - right through to the final draft, and sometimes even beyond that - baffled and defeated still, confused as to purpose long after the thing's in print. I never really have a guiding purpose or a point, not at the outset, anyway. It's like life: It's all discovered en route.

Quotes to Explore
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It ultimately becomes an asset to be part of a theatrical family if, indeed, you're good at what you do.
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I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.
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There are 3 billion women in the world, so there are 3 billion ways to be a feminist.
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In my own case, the most inflammatory statements I have ever made are ones that I have written and remain willing to defend.
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I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it.
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I really loved animals when I was little - my friend and I had an imaginary vet's office; we would mime doing surgery on animals. We treated more injuries than illnesses - fixing with a baby bear with a broken leg, removing a tumor. Of course, our surgeries would take about five seconds; that's how good we were.
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With Shakespeare, there's no subtext; you're speaking exactly what you're thinking constantly.
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The price of empire is America's soul, and that price is too high.
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(intro) Well, here we go. This is the first book I've written since 1975, when I was in the 7th grade and wrote Boogers Are Good Eatin'. (p. 1).
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Money appears as measure (in Homer, e.g. oxen) earlier than as medium of exchange,because in barter each commodity is still its own medium of exchange. But it cannot be its own or its own standard of comparison.
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Voluntary birth control methods only work on the people who choose to use ’em. A population check that doesn’t work on everybody doesn’t work at all, because it simply breeds out the ones who use it. The only population check that really works is one that affects everybody, like a limit of space or food.
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Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.
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It must be obvious... that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.
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Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life, The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
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Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.
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A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one.
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Growing up, I was always chubby. My girlfriends were always running around in two-pieces, and I never felt comfortable to do that.
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Sometimes reality T.V. can be stressful.
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Life is full of risks anyway; why not take them?
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On the surface, you think you wouldn't have to think at all about being asked to play Bilbo in 'The Hobbit.' It's not prison; it's a good gig. But you know it's going to take a long time, and it does. There are times when you thought: 'Gee, I've not seen my house for months.'
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There's a big link between trains and film. One of the first filmed objects was a train. The clickety-clack of the projector and the clickety-clack of the train are similar. There is the idea of the voyage - every voyage is a story. I wonder if film would have been invented without the train.
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Everything, everything in war is barbaric... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.
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I've never been punched in the face, so I didn't know it would hurt so much!
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My instinct tells me "purpose" is maybe the enemy of a good personal essay. In my own experience, I'm always lost and wandering and searching - where am I? how'd I get in this mess? what's the point? - right through to the final draft, and sometimes even beyond that - baffled and defeated still, confused as to purpose long after the thing's in print. I never really have a guiding purpose or a point, not at the outset, anyway. It's like life: It's all discovered en route.