Alice McDermott Quotes

I'm interested in characters who should know better, who know they should give up, move on, accept life as it is, with all its constraints - life, death, time - but don't.

Alice McDermott

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Quotes to Explore

• I wish the world could better know this country for what it really is. Not just a greedy economic giant crouching fearfully behind its walls, not just a panoplied warrior nervously fingering his weapons. What is this, is a people who gather together in thousands to give a people's government its essential vitality.

  

  Ralph Bellamy
  • People
  • World
  • Country

• Like in every peace process, and especially in Colombia, there all kinds of problems that will come through. Not only is the process by itself very complicated but it has lots of underground complications.

  

  Ingrid Betancourt
  • Peace
  • Problems
  • Process

• Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.

  

  Harry Browne
  • Children
  • Family
  • Free

• I watch a lot of television. I always have.

  

  Aaron Tveit
  • Always
  • Television
  • Watch

• Now, everybody knows my music. So that's really cool. A lot of kids know it. Now, when I go to a sports game, everybody knows my name.

  

  Nat Wolff
  • Music
  • Kids
  • Game

• The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.

  

  Quentin Crisp
  • Time
  • Parents
  • Problem

• Sick children, if not too shy to speak, will always express this wish. They invariably prefer a story to be told to them, rather than read to them.

  

  Florence Nightingale
  • Children
  • Wish
  • Speak

• I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could - with 100 per cent certainty - know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.

  

  Hans Blix
  • Knowledge
  • Know
  • Action

• That's one of the things I miss most about Australia - the countryside.

  

  Yvonne Strahovski
  • Most
  • Australia
  • Countryside

• D.C. is where I started. That's home for me. I always love coming back to the area. They treat me so well, and people show up. They're excited and claim me as their own. I love it.

  

  Wanda Sykes
  • People
  • Up
  • Love

• Whenever I received too much praise, it just didn't feel right to me – ever.

  

  Nas
  • Feel
  • Right
  • Praise

• There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.

  

  Walt Disney
  • Treasure
  • Pirate
  • Island

• There was never any question that I would go to college, that I would travel, that I would go to the theater early and often.

  

  Harold Prince
  • College
  • Question
  • Never

• I love New York. Love it.

  

  Taraji P. Henson
  • Love
  • New
  • New York

• I think sometimes when I go to make a move on something, people try to disqualify any talent that I have or any hard work that I've done.

  

  Gabrielle Reece
  • People
  • Work
  • Done

• Michael Jackson, he used to chase relevancy all the time. He always wanted to go a little bigger and better and keep that audience. There was never a point where Michael was going to feel like, 'I've got to play the Nokia, and that's all I'm going to pull in is the Nokia.' That would not have been acceptable.

  

  Babyface
  • Time
  • Feel
  • Better

• As a child in the early 1980s, I tended to talk with things in my mouth - food, dentist's tubes, balloons that would fly away, whatever - and if no one else was around, I'd talk anyway.

  

  Sam Kean
  • Food
  • Child
  • Fly

• Actively deciding to give to causes that move you deeply is far more fulfilling than the momentary gratification derived from signing a check and mailing it to a nonprofit about which you know little more than what's on the brochure they sent you.

  

  Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen
  • You
  • Know
  • Nonprofit

• I began to get calls from constituents, 'Do you think you can ever get on transportation?' So when there was a vacancy created, I worked very hard to get there.

  

  Chuck Fleischmann

• I just want to do a movie musical and then if I could do some recording stuff, that would be amazing! I would die a happy woman! I really would. It doesn't take much!

  

  Jasika Nicole
  • Movie
  • Happy
  • Die

• I used to be really wild and dissatisfied and angry and had a journey toward becoming a lady; I think that's with anybody coming into their own power.

  

  Lauren Ambrose
  • Power
  • Journey
  • Angry

• I always ask, 'Is this movie essential? Does this movie need to exist? Does it need to exist right now?' And the answer to that is almost always no.

  

  Allison Williams
  • Movie

• People only talk about what a joyous experience it is, but there is terror: Your life, as you know it, is over. It's over the day that child is born. It's over, and something completely new starts.

  

  Bill Murray
  • People
  • Life
  • Experience

• I'm interested in characters who should know better, who know they should give up, move on, accept life as it is, with all its constraints - life, death, time - but don't.

  

  Alice McDermott
  • Life
  • Up
  • Time