Boots Riley (Raymond Lawrence Riley) Quotes
I wanted to write a song about sexism, but I didn't want to do it in a mechanical way and be like, "Don't be sexist!" because that's not how I talk in regular life.
Quotes to Explore
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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.
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I wanted to make Canadian films, and I ended up making American films.
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When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.
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When people come to Twitter and they want to express something in the world, the technology fades away. It's them writing a simple message and them knowing that people are going to see it.
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On a very personal level, I have fond memories of spending a lot of time in the Library of Congress working on my collection of poems 'Native Guard.' I was there over a summer doing research in the archives and then writing in the reading room at the Jefferson building.
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I became what I wanted to be.
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Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.
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I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.
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Music can be such a vulnerable thing, so when you're delivering a vocal or writing a piece of music, it's easy to get sideways.
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If you start off writing an album with a band, the reality is that you're constantly in each other's company, so it's really important that you get on with each other.
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People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them.
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And I love writing. I've always loved writing.
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I've had battles with writers who live in L.A. and were writing southern characters, because they felt like if they wrote 'Sugar' and 'Honey' at the end of every sentence, that would make it southern.
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I have been taking voice and singing lessons since age 10 and originally got into it because I was really interested in musical theater. After writing my first couple of songs and performing at age 14, I knew that I really wanted to be a singer.
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I'd like to be writing songs for other people - I just like writing songs.
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I tried writing a novel, but plays were the thing that kept feeding me, asking me to come back, sit down and be with them.
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I love television, and my love for it has made me curious about writing it. It feels like television's moving toward something more novelistic, and that's what I started wanting to do. But I can't say that I'm dying to get notes from a studio. The artistic control that you get as a playwright is worth its weight in gold.
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My life has two modes. One is sitting around writing and contemplating or building things. The other is execution mode. It takes a while to switch from one to the other.
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All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.
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There are some sentences you cannot see yourself ever writing. 'I heartily endorse the Conservative Party' would be one. 'I look forward to Justin Bieber's new record' would be another.
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I continue to believe when I said in Hanover, that the E.U. remains one of the world's great political and economic achievements, and that those achievements should not be taken for granted.
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I was told it might be quite difficult to conceive, so it really was a great blessing when my pregnancy suddenly happened. I had been diagnosed years ago with polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can affect your fertility - but luckily, in my case, it didn't.
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When you're shooting with long lenses, even if you're shooting a close-up, you feel the air, the distance between the camera and the subject.
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I wanted to write a song about sexism, but I didn't want to do it in a mechanical way and be like, "Don't be sexist!" because that's not how I talk in regular life.
