Pat Barker Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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The problem is that no ethical system has ever achieved consensus. Ethical systems are completely unlike mathematics or science. This is a source of concern.
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I've never had a study in my life. I'm like Jane Austen - I work on the corner of the dining table.
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I do not have the angst and the anxiety of my youth. I've gotten to a place where I'm very comfortable with who I am.
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There have been weeks when I've not been hydrating properly or not eating properly or training too hard. When I do that, I don't feel good. It has to be the exact formula.
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Acting, and the privilege of being able to do it for a living, is so important to me. I don't turn up and just hope for the best. I really fret about it. I do my homework; I prepare myself for the experience of playing a particular character.
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National partition is a sorrow that touches all Koreans, but for me it is brought to the fore by unimaginable personal suffering.
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If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others; for the knowledge of truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.
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I just don't watch a lot of TV.
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When you go to jail, there's so much simple stuff missing. You just want some good toilet paper or a real toothbrush, a real blanket and a real bed to lay in.
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I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.
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I've had a dozen novels published and have made far more than a dozen mistakes. Which is why Randy Susan Meyers and I wrote a guidebook to help authors avoid making our mistakes.
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Gratefulness is a double-edged sword. Because I think we've poured it into a feeling. And the batter of gratitude gets kind of stuck to the edges of the Williams Sonoma melamine mixing bowl. But gratefulness, the act of being grateful is actually... a verb. It's an activity.
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Los Angeles is a really strange place. I grew up there like a normal kid, but it was not until I experienced other parts of the world that I realized how really and truly bizarre to the core it is - inside the homes of the powerful and damaged.
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Anybody can do a deal. The tough part is doing the deal at the right time, being strategic.
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Unless you consider yourself some sort of human brand, which I don't, you have to deal with the fact that different people are going to like different aspects of your work. It's not consistent. I am not consistent. But I feel OK with that.
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Reducing caloric intake is the only proven method of extending life. If caloric intake is reduced to 20 percent below maintenance, you can extend your lifespan considerably.
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Let me be very honest and just say that if any airline would let me take the violin and the laptop on board I would fly that airline all the time.
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You can have all the talent in the world, but without determination, you won't get very far.
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I love mayonnaise. Every birthday when I was a kid I'd go to Black Angus and just dip my burger in mayo.
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There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
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America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.
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Burroughs called his greatest novel 'Naked Lunch,' by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. Telling the truth. It's very difficult to do that in fiction because the whole process of writing fiction is a process of sidestepping the truth. I think he got very close to it, in his way, and I hope I've done the same in mine.
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The most desirable aspects of the Law of the Sea Treaty pertain to navigational rights.
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Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.
