Dan Chiasson Quotes
I treat myself as one of the sources. And, again, I think that’s accurate. One of the poets I read most frequently is myself. I really do. I read my own poems obsessively.
Quotes to Explore
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I've made up little mantras for myself, catchphrases from a screenwriting book that doesn't exist. One is 'Write the movie you'd pay to go see.' Another is 'Never let a character tell me something that the camera can show me.'
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I chose to present myself as one who comes from among the people, and I can be touched by their pain because I have my own.
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I submerged myself in all the information that I could find about Idi Amin. I mean, before I left Los Angeles, I was studying Kiswahili. I was working on the dialect. I was studying every documentary and tape of him that I could find - not just visual, but also audiocassettes, even in other languages when he was speaking in other dialects.
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I like to work all the time and really immerse myself in the project.
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I love talking about myself.
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For the last few years I've tried to force myself to write at least one page every day, which doesn't sound like much but it's actually pretty hard to manage. Because I'm not allowed to do a make-up day. I can't do two pages the next day. The punishment for not completing my page is that I have to eat a vegetarian meal the next day.
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I'm guilty of it myself, sort of thinking, 'Classic novels: snoozeville.' But there is a huge amount of wonderful material.
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I've had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I've had lots of guys call me up. I've gotten two or three commissions to write things. I've written lots of movie scores.
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An incident that left an impression on me was the 1999 sub-junior national boxing championship held in Calcutta. I had trained extremely hard to get there but got kicked out in the first round itself. 'If others can win, why can't you?' I repeatedly asked myself.
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Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
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I get 0.5 seconds to react to a ball, sometimes even less than that. I can't be thinking of what XYZ has said about me. I need to surrender myself to my natural instincts. My subconscious mind knows exactly what to do. It is trained to react. At home, my family doesn't discuss media coverage.
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I look at myself as an audience member. I still love movies, and I still go and sit in the back of the big dark room with everybody else, and I want the same thrill.
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When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.
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I like to think of myself as a storyteller.
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I see myself not only as a football player, but an entertainer and icon.
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I've seen myself on those lists of the 100 best guitarists, and if they think that I'm that good, thank them. Thank God for them. But I don't think so.
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I knew the profanity used up and down my street would not go over the air... So I trained myself to say 'Holy Cow' instead.
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I know that I have probably an eight- to 10-year window in this league, and if I want to be what I say I want to be, then I have to commit myself 100 percent.
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I don't like doing the same material over and over again. It's not fun.
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Over my career, I've reinvented myself numerous times. I covered the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA. I wrote about labor wars, trade wars and real wars. I chronicled a nuclear plant meltdown and the defeat of Communism. I co-founded a couple of media businesses.
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To know that everything we say and do to this new little human being may have a profound effect on him or her is a daunting obligation.
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I've been loving music all my life.
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Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets have a great deal of information about all of us - and the government wants to be able to see it.
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I treat myself as one of the sources. And, again, I think that’s accurate. One of the poets I read most frequently is myself. I really do. I read my own poems obsessively.
