Adam Gopnik Quotes
Accomplishment, the feeling of absorption in the flow, of mastery for its own sake, of knowing how to do this thing, is what keeps all of us doing what we do, if we like what we do at all.
Quotes to Explore
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All the marketing and advertising sells the book as what it is and hopes that the book will be displayed so that your readers can find it.
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Whether you listen to a piece of music, or a poem, or look at a picture or a jug, or a piece of sculpture, what matters about it is not what it has in common with others of its kind, but what is singularly its own.
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If you are unhealthy, start by making small changes to become healthier. You are unique, beautiful, and worthy.
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I don't think I have a signature.
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If DreamWorks and Disney need that name to sell the cartoon and get people in the seats, that's what they need. It's not fair, but there's plenty of other work for us to do.
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I studied music at the most remedial level when I was a kid, through the Los Angeles public schools, with a little private instruction.
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I don't really think about what's 'age appropriate' for my audience because I think they can handle quite a bit, but I do try to think about what's honest and true to my characters who have grown up in situations where they've been taught to handle these things very carefully and that they're very powerful.
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Society becomes how we behave.
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I don't know what the instinct is, to save every report card, every half-sentence scribbled note, but my mother did it pretty effectively, and I've done it to a fare-thee-well.
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I thought marriage was something very quiet and very regular and very bourgeois.
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Everything must be carried out in extreme sobriety.
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One of the darkest evils of our world is surely the unteachable wildness of the Good.
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Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.
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I know a lot of people struggle with the idea of Jesus and their idea of God. I think, if you don't even know what you're praying to or who you're praying to, based on what I know to be true, regardless, God's always listening.
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I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a Gentle-man and is nothing else.
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When I wake up in a bad mood, I try not to stay in one. Learn to make the best of what you have.
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I will take the subway and look at certain women and think 'God, that woman's story will never be told. How come that lady doesn't get a movie about her?'
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Declare Church and State forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres, and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation.
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The only way to permanently change the temperature in the room is to reset the thermostat. In the same way, the only way to change your level of financial success 'permanently' is to reset your financial thermostat. But it is your choice whether you choose to change.
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I'm not big on fuzzy or fleecy slippers. I just don't like the texture and the heat. It just gets to be too much.
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I never go to these showbiz parties. I avoid them with a 10-inch pole.
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The people I admire are Tim Buckley and John Martyn - singers that grew into themselves and were honest. John Martyn is one of the great soul singers because soul is not a genre; it's a feeling.
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As a writer, you're always trying to say the best thing. You're always thinking about what's the best thing to say, and what's the hardest way to say it, and what's the best line? Sometimes the best line is the simplest line. Sometimes the best line is the line that evokes more feeling than actual wordsmithing.
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Accomplishment, the feeling of absorption in the flow, of mastery for its own sake, of knowing how to do this thing, is what keeps all of us doing what we do, if we like what we do at all.
