Elif Safak Quotes
I write as if I were drunk. It is a process of intuition rather than placing myself above my story like a puppeteer pulling strings. For me, it's a scary, chaotic process over which I have little control. Words demand other words, characters resist me.

Quotes to Explore
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If you go back and watch 'The French Connection,' it's been cannibalized so many times. There are certain movies like that, where you see the original and think, 'This isn't so great.' And the reason it isn't so great is because everyone has copied it.
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Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying any one long on her shoulders.
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For any actor - not just talking about myself - but if you've been fortunate enough to work for a long period of time, there's going to be different choices you're going to make.
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For me, whenever I would see a lot of 'black films,' I didn't feel represented in it. I didn't feel connected to the characters or the situations or the humor.
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I shall have a beautiful dream tonight. I also wish everyone to have a beautiful dream.
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I can't imagine playing a boring gig. Like, a boring audience without reaction, I will play against them.
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I vowed to myself when I got married that I would cook every night. I find it very therapeutic.
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He used to have a tent show, a little tent show, and I thought I was going to get a job working one year on the tent show, but he closed it down and I never got to go out there, but anyway, he had a sax and played drums.
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The win-win situation is the basis for America's entire business world. Instead of wasting our time attempting to defeat each other, let's find a way that will make both of us gain and go home satisfied. In Israel, it doesn't work because the only meaning of victory is seeing your rival's body lying trampled on the floor.
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If you come every day or every month to my studio, you won't see that much change, but if you come once a year, you'll see big new categories opened up.
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My whole career has been trying to please people in basketball. Now it's time to please myself.
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It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.
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I like almonds as a snack - keeps your energy up but doesn't fill you up.
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Ever since I was little, I would just make stories up in my mind. It was based on people I saw in the street or someone I would talk to, or I would hear a specific voice.
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People who want to be a star get their teeth capped. People who want to be an actor get to work.
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I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off 'Thought for the Day' when it comes on the radio.
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I always try not to overload my music with orchestration and to use only those instruments that are absolutely necessary.
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I don't actually think there has ever been too much emphasis on what I am wearing.
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I've seen a fair bit of the States and the rest of the world, and I'm convinced that there's nowhere I'd be happier, there's nowhere I'm missing out on because I'm in N.Y.
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We are not racists or extremists in the Front National. We are people who love our country.
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About 1883 something like a break occurred in my work. I had reached the end of 'impressionism,' and I had come to realize that I did not know how to paint or draw.
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When we read about reading, we get to share an experience that is usually kept private. Incisive descriptions of reading help us to understand what is going on when our eyes move across words on the page.
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How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?
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I write as if I were drunk. It is a process of intuition rather than placing myself above my story like a puppeteer pulling strings. For me, it's a scary, chaotic process over which I have little control. Words demand other words, characters resist me.