Colleen McCullough Quotes
The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.
Quotes to Explore
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Once you make it to your point of making it, you'll appreciate the struggle.
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What Washington needs is adult supervision.
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We must continue research into new forms of energy and into more efficient use of existing energy sources.
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I learned how to read in second grade, and I entered a summer contest at my local library in Chattanooga, Tennessee. If you read more books than anybody else, you got your Polaroid up on the bulletin board, and I did.
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It's different from Liverpool. Boston seems to be a friendly place.
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When I was younger, I wanted to marry early, like at 23. Year by year, I found things I wanted to do, and the thought of marriage disappeared. But I don't want to marry too late. Around 31?
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The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.
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America is another name for opportunity.
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With my gift, I can pretty much write a song out of anything.
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I've been very fortunate in my collaborators throughout my career.
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I have no ties to my dad. I had no communications with him; it didn't shape who I am or anything like that. I'm actually a product of my mom.
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I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn.
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I once interviewed my grandma for a class project about the Second World War. After 70 years filled with marriage, children, grandchildren, death, poverty and triumph, the thing about which she was unquestionably the proudest and most excited was that she and her family did their part during the war.
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Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives.
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To me, being in your prime means playing your best and feeling your best, too.
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As far as expectations go, you can never work for expectations. You have to work against them.
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I'm an optimist. My own fiction, while it has its own dark warnings about pitfalls ahead, depicts the potential of science to improve society by networking human minds.
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When people say I have become a celebrity, I remind them of fame's flip side. For instance, if I want to watch a movie in a cinema, I have to enter through a side exit just before the film begins and leave by the same exit before the credits roll.
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I am not one of those people who has contempt for Hillary Clinton. I think she's served our nation. I think there are things that she's done that are very good.
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People equate success with youth. And if you haven't had a certain amount of success by a certain time in your life, it's never going to happen. There's a fear about that. So people start lying about their age really young. I've never done that because I think it's so insignificant.
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The people will come and go. Sometimes they'll be there for you. Sometimes they wont. Some will love you, some will not. This tide was never meant to be still. Step away from time to time. And know that only a heart fixed on the unmoving spot can ride the waves of this ever-changing, ever-fading life.
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I've never backed out of a fight in my life. That's not what I do.
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When I'm writing about reality, I'm writing about death. When I'm writing fiction, I'm writing about life.
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The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.
