Shakira Quotes
Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.
Quotes to Explore
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As regards literary culture, it fascinates me that it has been so resilient to the Union. For example, when T.S. Eliot wanted to become poet in these lands, it wasn't as an English poet, it was an Anglian poet he wanted to be.
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In my relationship with a young guy I was going with in a band - his name was Sylvester, and I think he had another little girl on the side - I told him, 'If you lose me, you're going to lose a good thing.' And I went home and put that poem to music.
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I took English courses in college, but I don't have an English degree. I have a degree in economics.
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I don't talk about Amy Winehouse as a 'singer.' She's a pioneer. I listened to her endlessly when I started writing.
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I can be collaborative, for instance, in situations where I go and study the artist's work before I start writing. Then I can at least try to write towards their style.
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I'd previously done 'Expelled,' and that was more on the comedy side, so I really wanted to challenge myself and see if I could actually do a drama.
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I love to walk through the streets of Jesus Maria and Pueblo Libre. The Spanish colonial buildings are in bright colors, two stories high, with these intricate wooden, windowed balconies.
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Black people were very angry with me for writing the book. A lot of people didn't believe me, or didn't want to believe me, and that used to really bother me. It was a very painful and difficult time.
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You sit at your computer for hours, then slave away at your job that you may or may not like. You don't know how to explain to them that the time when you feel alive or present is when you are writing.
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I love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.
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Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.
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My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.
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I've been writing about my boyhood, when I was a little kid back on my grandfather's farm where we didn't know about black widow spiders or all that stuff. But writing about that is so easy.
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I mean, the wonderful thing about writing a book is that you're getting a finished product at the end of the day. You're communicating directly with the reader.
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Bofors was a steelmaker that became a forgings company and then went on to build guns. Companies like Krupp and Thyssen were in steel and forgings before entering defence. There are similar examples in the U.K.; it is a natural progression.
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Whatever's going on with me at the time of writing is going to find its way into the piece. If that doesn't happen, then what the hell am I doing? So if I'm writing 'Inglourious Basterds,' and I'm in love with a girl and we break up, that's going to find its way into the piece.
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When I'm writing, I spend all my time in The Grocer on Elgin buying ready-made meals; I think they are the only reason my husband and kids haven't left me.
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Writing can be a very solitary profession, and when deadlines are looming, it's tempting to glue myself to my desk, but I try to make sure I get out a few times a month with friends just so I don't forget what it means to be social.
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However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.
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It is the nature of English society to do precisely that: to keep the lower classes low and raise the upper classes even higher.
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On tour, it's hard to do much writing, but if I'm on a deadline, I find a way.
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If we must fall, we should boldly meet our fate.
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There's so often - in filmmaking, you're backed into something that already has these set parameters, whether it's a sequel or a book that people love.
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Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.
