Lydia Davis Quotes
I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek.
Quotes to Explore
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I actually found not having a routine was inspiration.
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The most important of all rights is the right to life, and I cannot foresee a day when domesticated animals will be granted that right in law.
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I'm a psychologist. I was a psychology faculty member, and then I became an administrator of the department, then the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. At the time of the presidential search, I was the dean.
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I've been blessed with pretty strong stamina and healthy genes, so I'd call myself sensible. I've had regular mammograms ever since I found a lump in my breast when I was 30. Thankfully, all was well.
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Though my poems are about evenly split between traditionally formal work that uses rhyme and meter and classical structure, and work that is freer, I feel that the music of language remains at the core of it all. Sound, rhythm, repetition, compression - these elements of my poetry are also elements of my prose.
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My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.
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I'm still very much a believer in the spontaneity of certain kinds of writing. But then you have to eventually, when you're writing a long play, make adjustments along the way - all kinds of adjustments.
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Try to meet as many authors, agents, and editors as you can.
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As Peter Bogdanovich would say of Paper Moon: Ryan's wonderful in it, and he sat there and watched the kid steal the picture.
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You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice.
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We're seeing conservatives and evangelicals and libertarian and Reagan Democrats all coming together as one, and that terrifies Washington, D.C.
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There's a lot of whiners in every crowd.
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I think I went to Italy initially for the art, architecture, food and history, but I stayed there because of the people in Cortona.
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Where I am right now I'm pretty good at. You know, I understand that there's a problem. I'm addressing it. I'm doing the work that I have to do.
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Out of the 1.2 billion people in India, one-third of them are between the age of 1-14 and by 2030, India will have a dynamic and youthful workforce of about 700 million with an average age of 35. This is expected to constitute a substantial proportion of world's workforce.
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When we're trying to solve difficult national issues its sometimes necessary to talk to adversaries as well as friends. Historians have a word for this: diplomacy.
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Gertrude Johnson could feel no real respect for, no real interest in, anybody who wasn't a writer. For her there were two species: writers and people; and the writers were really people, and the people weren't.
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The Government as Substitute Husband did for women what labor unions still have not accomplished for men. And men pay dues for labor unions; the taxpayer pays the dues for feminism. Feminism and government soon become taxpayer-supported women’s unions.
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A man is a poet if difficulties inherent in his art provide him with ideas; he is not a poet if they deprive him of ideas.
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Hearts don't burst. They keep on expanding. There's no end to it.
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I was told it might be quite difficult to conceive, so it really was a great blessing when my pregnancy suddenly happened. I had been diagnosed years ago with polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can affect your fertility - but luckily, in my case, it didn't.
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I love edgy comedy. 'Coming to America' still gets me and 'Friday.' I watch old Richard Pryor stand-up on VHS, too.
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Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs... I knew that my heart would break if ever I put my foot down on that soil, moist, still, with old hurts. I had to face the fear/loathing at its source or it would consume me whole.
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I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek.
