Ken Liu Quotes
The idea that somehow the way forward is to abandon the past, to me, is preposterous and both undesirable and unrealistic.
Quotes to Explore
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You can never plan the future by the past.
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In my case, I write in the past because I'm not really part of the present. I have nothing valid to say about anything current, though I have something to say about what existed then.
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To write our constitution is for the past, the present, and the future to come together all at once in one single motion, in one single heave, one single cry. For we correct the errors of the past and chart a new course for the future, based on the experience of the present.
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It takes leadership to improve safety. And I started off the movement in my time, but the person who has done more over the past 20 to 30 years and who has led it is Professor Sid Watkins.
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I'm a professional fighter and like most professional fighters I have had difficulties with my hands in the past.
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When historians of early America turned from the pursuit of past politics, they devised a category known in the academy as 'social and intellectual history.' In it, they stuffed nearly everything except politics on the assumption, which the anthropologists assured them was correct, that it would all fit together. Somehow it did not.
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I probably prefer Spanish football to the others. It's very technical, the way they play; they keep the ball well, and whenever Spurs have played against Spanish teams in the past, they've always made it difficult for us.
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The simple truth of our finiteness is that we could, by whatever means, go on interminably only at the price of either losing the past and, therewith, our identity, or living only in the past and therefore without a real present. We cannot seriously wish either and thus not a physical enduring at that price.
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The illusion is that most of my work is simply about past events: a point in history and nothing else.
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People always think they're in the middle of a revolution while they tend not to realize the enormity of a change that has happened in the past. The telegraph was a revolution, but who looks at it that way these days? The telegraph sped up the transportation of messages over long distances by a huge factor.
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I'm so suspicious of our own understanding of the past. I just think that your mind plays absolute tricks on you and fools you every minute of every day. And so when you're talking about the past, you're talking about something that never happened. At least it didn't happen the way you think it happened.
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I like connecting the abstract to the concrete. There's a tension in that. I believe the reader or listener should be able to enter the poem as a participant. So I try to get past resolving poems.
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Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.
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I have been immeasurably honored to serve the people of Maine for nearly 40 years in public office and for the past 17 years in the United States Senate. It was incredibly difficult to decide that I would not seek a fourth term in the Senate.
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There's not a Sunday that goes past that I'm not excited to play this game. I feel as if I'm a lucky individual to have the opportunity to play this game, and when I do have the opportunity to finally play, you can bet your last dollar I will be excited to play.
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With cult foods, there is an underlying assumption that the best cooking ideas came generations ago. Yet culinary innovation is nothing to be ashamed of. When a chef tells me he is cooking with his grandmother's recipe, I always wonder why. Did talent skip the past two generations?
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I'll never stop dreaming that one day we can be a real family, together, all of us laughing and talking, loving and understanding, not looking at the past but only to the future.
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The West has demonstrated its ability in the past to project power and move troops to distant regions.
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It hasn't been smooth or delightful every minute, there were lean years and rough years, but it's been exciting and good and I'm thrilled to be an actress and a singer and to have spent my life this way.
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We've had over 100 calls from kids or parents. We've had 12 informational sessions in all three cities in the past one or two months, so applications are coming in every day. We have 30 spots left to offer in the first class. If people are interested in applying, now is definitely the time.
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The most important thing about Spaceship Earth - an instruction book didn't come with it.
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There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.
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When you work on an album for three and a half years, you're kind of ready for it to get out there. To have your songs reach people.
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The idea that somehow the way forward is to abandon the past, to me, is preposterous and both undesirable and unrealistic.
