Alice McDermott Quotes
What interests me is whatever it is that allows the heart to continue to yearn for something the intelligence knows is impossible to have: a lost love, a shelter from life's blows, the return of a time past, even a connection to the dead.
Quotes to Explore
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As for advice for aspiring authors, the best I can give is to be brave. It sounds like a simple enough thing, but it's not. Rejection is such an integral part of this journey, and it never goes away.
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The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.
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Always remember that better days are ahead - if not in this life, in the next.
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The artistic part of us all - I think that the easiest way to appreciate this - is through architecture. Architecture is very impressive; the beauty of buildings, temples.
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Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
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God manifests himself in each historical period according to the understanding of the people of the era.
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In occupied Iraq, the introduction of new paper money took almost a year, 20 or so Boeing 747s, the mobilisation of the U.S. military's might, three printing firms, and hundreds of trucks.
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You have to be willing to ask questions that almost no one else would ask.
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I like not to feel that all my eggs are in one basket, or I get nervous.
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What we want to do is put a price on greenhouse gases. Because if they're more expensive, businesses will find a way to be more efficient or switch to solar or hydro or wind power. So that will reduce emissions.
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I don't get this whole super-skinny obsession. I really think women look more beautiful when they let their curves show.
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I get mad quick and and go off at the handle quick.
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I still have the dress I wore on the first date with my husband, which was more than 66 years ago. I still have it, and it still fits.
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The biggest part of Loopt is about discovering the world around you, never replacing a social experience - only adding to it.
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Novelists have to be adept at controlling the flow of information, and, most crucially, they have to be in charge of the narrative.
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Everything I've ever written, I had a very distinct vision of what I wanted it to look like. But, other directors never do it that way.
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People did not even then like to eat dirt, if they could see it.
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Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
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If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.
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My mother was a great woman. To look at her from the suffering she had gone through to bring us up - 20 children: 6 girls and 14 boys, but still she taught us to be decent and to respect ourselves, and that is one of the things that has kept me going, even after she passed.
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I'm not looking ahead joyfully to the rest of my life or the future of the human race. I've always written about man as an animal species among other animals, competing for limited resources. Our population is exploding. Our environment is dying. Science has debunked God.
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I might look successful but I've made many mistakes. People take their failures too seriously. You have to be positive and believe you will find success next time.
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What interests me is whatever it is that allows the heart to continue to yearn for something the intelligence knows is impossible to have: a lost love, a shelter from life's blows, the return of a time past, even a connection to the dead.
