Pat Barker Quotes
What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.
Quotes to Explore
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At first blush, it seems odd that loser lit books are rejected initially, then go on to be fiercely loved by legions of readers. This apparent contradiction might be due to the fact that if they didn't screw up their lives, most losers would be the kind of power-elite, Type A go-getters whom readers love to hate.
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Laughter made you live better and longer.
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Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.
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I hate jeans for no reason.
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What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.
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I've never been married and I've no more desire to be married now than I ever have. I hate bureaucracy and I am not religious.
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Better to be disliked than pitied.
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Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.
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An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.
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We have to build a better education in this country. We need to step it up.
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The less I talk about being black, the better.
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I tend to resist invitations to interpret my own fiction.
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When a product is made, everyone hopes for the best. Whether it could have been better or not is more of an afterthought.
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The women putting their lives at risk for our country deserve better than to be treated as second-class citizens.
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If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.
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You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.
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He who stops being better stops being good.
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I liked Dallas better because it was more deceptive, you could do more with it.
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I hate celebrating birthdays.
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I have never met an author who did not read voraciously as a child.
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There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their numbers than the greatness of a man is by his height.
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I think it's so important that, if I'm writing about the real world, I stay true to it. I think that kids do compartmentalize, and they're hopefully able to see it from a safe place of their own lives and, through that, learn something about empathy.
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There are certain directors who just don't cast diversely in prominent roles. Ever. Often it's just because they don't have a diverse social circle, so they don't think of black or brown people as husbands, best friends, bosses.
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What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.
