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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At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.
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For all the huge advances in the control of our lives through science and technology, an earthquake on this scale is truly humbling as well as profoundly tragic for everyone involved.
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No, you can't call your vote in. You have to be there on the floor to vote.
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What bothers me is our culture's obsession with nudity. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. I think this overemphasis with nudity makes actors nervous. There's the worry about seeing one's body dissected, misrepresented, played and replayed on the Internet.
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Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker seemed so sophisticated and bad. I wanted to be like that.
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What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.
