Adnan Sami Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I've read quite a few readers' reviews of my book on Amazon, saying, 'Ah, he criticises the free market, he advocates central planning.' I don't do that for a minute! But this is our black and white, dichotomous way of thinking - which has really been harmful.
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My function is, as objectively and accurately as I can, to present reality to people out there, and doing that as quickly as we do is quite difficult enough, thank you.
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To this day, some of my closest friends say, 'Gaga, you know, everything's great. You're a singer; your dreams have come true.' But, still, when certain things are said to you over and over again as you're growing up, it stays with you and you wonder if they're true.
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I work eight hours a day, but I'm not writing all that time. I'm thinking, editing, looking something up. Thinking is what I do a lot of.
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There are a lot of good men's magazines. In England, you have 'Arena Homme+' and 'Another Man;' and in France we have 'L'Officiel Hommes.' But all are looking similar.
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I began teaching in New York because I needed to stay in the United States and didn't have my immigration papers in order, so working for a university was a way of resolving the issue.
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I'm still coming to terms with what it's like to have people follow your personal life as well as your public life. It gets amusing.
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Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.
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And my mouth is not a sewer, although some people may think it is.
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When I first started writing, I used to listen to music all the time because it would make time pass more quickly. And then I started to wonder if the music wasn't affecting my writing in ways that I didn't necessarily intend.
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I am always worried that over-planning and outlining will kill the magic of writing; most of the world I created in 'California' occurred via good old sexy sentence-making.
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Happiness is a mysterious concept. It seems to work best as futurity: at that point I will be happy, et cetera. I feel like I experience small pieces of joy day to day.
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I don't think I was born beautiful. I just think I was born me.
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Dried porcini add a substantial, deep flavour to otherwise more neutral vegetables. I use them in risottos, mashed roots and winter soups.
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When Orientals are attacked, they don't hit back.
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I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.
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The thing about Moby Dick is that, at heart, it's a very simple plot - there's only one white whale in the ocean. When you're a boy growing up in a hostile home, you imagine it's unique: it's happening only to you.
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I don't feel I'm playing villains all the time.
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As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.
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There are a lot of obstacles in the way of our understanding animal intelligence - not the least being that we can't even agree whether nonhuman species are conscious. We accept that chimps and dolphins experience awareness; we like to think dogs and cats do. But what about mice and newts? What about a fly? Is anything going on there at all?
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There are so many choices I made simply for health insurance. Is it the ideal role I wanted to play, or the TV show I wanted to be a part of? No, but it let me afford to go to the doctor.
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RNA interference has proven to be a quite reliable mechanism for turning genes off in a whole variety of different plants and animals.
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When I wrote 'Your Republic Is Calling You,' it was Franz Kafka's writing that I had most in mind, and James Joyce's 'Ulysses.' Entirely out of the blue, Kafka's characters receive an order to go somewhere, and when they try to comply, they never quite manage it. Ki-yong in 'Your Republic Is Calling You' is precisely that sort of character.
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There is nothing more beautiful for a musician to listen and see harmony.