Elif Safak Quotes
The only way to learn writing is by writing. Talent, as charming as it sounds, amounts to no more than 12 per cent of the process. Work is 80 per cent. The remaining 8 per cent is 'luck' or 'zeitgeist' - in short, things that are not in our hands.
Quotes to Explore
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It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?
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Sometimes things in life take a few years to digest, and they find their way into the work later on. Sometimes I'm writing about things from eight years ago-they just took a long time to distill and come out in the appropriate way.
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I don't look at emails, Internet or newspapers before 1 P.M. I wake at 7 A.M., eat fruit, drink tea or coffee, and read what I've achieved, or not achieved, the previous day. Then I take a shower and work on my next sentence until 1 P.M. After I've done emails and so on, I write again from 3 P.M. until 8 P.M.; then I socialise.
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I want to play in as many theatres as possible, work with as many brilliant people as possible, but definitely do a new play.
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I am an ordinary person.
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The reason why I'm a conservative is because conservative policies work and they improve opportunities. They are the avenue for climbing the economic dream.
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I don't always have the best eating habits. I like butter and ice cream. There are days when I should work out and I don't. But it's never too late to change old habits.
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I am not here to beat anyone. I am here to make a name for myself, and I am glad to work with great directors. I don't believe in the term 'next superstar.'
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The morning is always my best time of the day for writing because that's when my head is best.
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If you think about work, it's just this endlessly fascinating subject. We spend at least half of our waking hours working. So it becomes this incredible window into a whole variety of things: who we are human beings, how the economy works, how people relate to each other, how stuff is made, how the world spins on its axis.
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A lazy man works twice as hard. My mother told that to me, and now I say it to my kids. If you're writing an essay, keep it in the lines and in the margins so you don't have to do it over.
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The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore.
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The nice thing about writing at home is that it's almost as though I'm doing it already. I get out of bed thinking of my work, and I don't have to go anywhere to do it.
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The plan is to make money, and we know the fans are going to ask for mixtapes, and those mixtapes are going to hit. So when we put a tape out, we have more money coming in, that's why we work hard at it.
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The actors that I love to work with, they're hard on me. They're pushing me.
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Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it there will be a fish.
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I'd put it this way: Canadians want politicians to work together on their behalf. So that's what I'm committed to doing. I think it's been the goal of every NDP leader. Because we had a profound belief that we could do a good job on behalf of Canadians... if we were given that opportunity.
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We're taking on Social Security as a property rights issue. We figure that every single American has an absolute property right interest in the fruits of his or her own labor. What I work for should be my property.
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What I see is not a world of male oppression and female victimization but an international conspiracy by women to keep from men the knowledge of men's own frailty. A strange maternal protectiveness is at work.
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Are you doing work worth doing, or are you just doing your job?
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The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.
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I believe love at first sight is possible. Centuries of literature and art and beauty has been dedicated to that idea, so who am I to argue, even if I've never experienced it?
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Every single note on this album is there for a reason.
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The only way to learn writing is by writing. Talent, as charming as it sounds, amounts to no more than 12 per cent of the process. Work is 80 per cent. The remaining 8 per cent is 'luck' or 'zeitgeist' - in short, things that are not in our hands.
