Daniel Mendelsohn Quotes
I have nothing but great respect for great scholars. But I was in grad school in the '80s and '90s, at the height of the theory craziness. It had a big part in why I ended up becoming a writer rather than a scholar, because I thought, "I just can't play these games." I was interested in literature because I loved literature, and so much of the theoretical positioning, at that moment 25 years ago, was antagonistic to literature. You know, trying to show that Jane Austen is a terrible person because she wasn't thinking about colonialism.
Quotes to Explore
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Whatever you got you have to accentuate. I ran my female card up and down the ladder my whole career, because I was in a man's world. It was worked by women but owned by men. I was the only female owner in my field at that time.
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I love things that people hate. I hate middle-of-the-road stuff. It never really interests me.
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Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.
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From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
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True Yankees fans know an up-and-coming player when they see one.
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Religions work for their own aggrandizement - strengthen the church and so on - and they use reinforcers of one kind or another to get obedience and so on from their communicants.
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I am devoted to my husband and son. I am devoted to the practices and rituals that imbue our lives with a sense of meaning and purpose, that help me to live my days in the most emotionally and intellectually productive manner. I am devoted to the idea of devotion itself.
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'Damages' was cool. It brought me back to New York for a little while, so that was a lot of fun, and I was obviously very excited about the opportunity to work with Rose Byrne and Glenn Close. I'd been a fan of that show before I started working on it.
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I still feel I need to do things 10 times better than other players. Just to be accepted and to improve myself.
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Well I think that, if you want to look at polarizing people right now, I wouldn't look at Palin, I'd look at Barack Obama.
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I don't even like to go out onto the streets sometimes because I can't get anything done. People want pictures and autographs all the time.
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Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
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If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself.
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I have a tight family group that's really important to me. I don't want to work all the time.
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All these songs honestly explore the ups and downs of my reality.
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'She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,' cried the young Student; 'but in all my garden there is no red rose.'
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I developed 'Power: From the Mouths of the Occupied' while I was an Artist in Residence at Kalamazoo College.
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What happens to George Clooney and Bruce Willis is great, but I can't gauge my career by anyone else's.
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I got told by pretty much everyone I knew that, if I'm going to be out in L.A., working, you need a car. So I was thinking, I'm going to try and not get a car, just because I'm a contrarian that way.
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I grew up in an era of thinking of travel as escape. The idea that you could conceivably have a new life, go somewhere, fall in love, have little children under the palm trees.
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I've always had rock star envy. Unfortunately, writing is a pedestrian, tame occupation done while sitting in coffee-stained pajamas in front of a computer rather than prowling around a huge stage in sweaty leather pants, so I have to get my kicks vicariously.
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I have nothing but great respect for great scholars. But I was in grad school in the '80s and '90s, at the height of the theory craziness. It had a big part in why I ended up becoming a writer rather than a scholar, because I thought, "I just can't play these games." I was interested in literature because I loved literature, and so much of the theoretical positioning, at that moment 25 years ago, was antagonistic to literature. You know, trying to show that Jane Austen is a terrible person because she wasn't thinking about colonialism.
