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1625 Essayist Quotes

I slept for four years. I didn't study much of anything. I majored in something called communication arts.

Arts Communication Four Much
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I think a playwright realizes after he finishes working on the script that this is only the beginning. What will happen when it moves into three dimensions?

Beginning Dimensions Finishes Happen
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I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

Abstract Been European Expressionism
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It's so disappointing, to put it mildly, that people know so much about my life. Because it means that they're always trying to look at my books in terms of my life.

About Always Because Books
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I think there is a sense of last things in my work that probably comes from a Catholic childhood.

Catholic Childhood Last Sense
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When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.
Away Best Drops Else
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I've always liked being relatively obscure. I feel that's where I belong, that's where my work belongs.

Always Work Being Belong
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I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence.

Always Begin Myself Recognize
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The only way of living in a free society is to feel that you have the right to say and do stuff.

Feel Free Living Only
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The only way to find out why someone decides to engage in armed combat is to look at their individual personality.

Armed Combat Decide Engage
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I've never had very high regard for therapists. I owe my health, my mental survival, to my friends and loved ones.

Friends Had Health High
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Writers shouldn't have lives that are interesting. It gets in the way of your work.

Gets Interesting Lives Way
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The world is a very abnormal place.

Abnormal Place Very World
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In a repressive society, a writer can be deeply influential, but in a society that's filled with glut and repetition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act.

Act Consumption Deeply Endless
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In the face of technology, everything becomes a little atavistic.
Becomes Everything Face Little
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I've never rejected the world I came from. To be rejected by it is horrible.

Came Horrible Never Rejected
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It's no accident that my first novel was called Americana. This was a private declaration of independence, a statement of my intention to use the whole picture, the whole culture.

Accident Americana Culture Declaration
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One truth is the swing of the sentence, the beat and poise, but down deeper it's the integrity of the writer as he matches with the language.

Beat Deeper Down Integrity
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People who are in power make their arrangements in secret, largely as a way of maintaining and furthering that power.

Arrangements Largely Maintaining Make
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People who are powerless make an open theater of violence.

Make Open People Powerless
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Silence, exile, cunning and so on... it's my nature to keep quiet about most things. Even the ideas in my work.

Cunning Exile Ideas Keep
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The language of my books has shaped me as a man.

Books Language Man Shaped
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The modern meaning of life's end-when does it end? How does it end? How should it end? What is the value of life? How do we measure it?

Life Meaning Measure Modern
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The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.

Affiliation Independent Influence Outside
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There's a connection between the advances that are made in technology and the sense of primitive fear people develop in response to it.

Advances Between Connection Develop
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There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live.

Force Live Moral Out
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True terror is a language and a vision. There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts, and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.

Alter Aspire Consciousness Deep
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When you try to unravel something you've written, you belittle it in a way. It was created as a mystery.

Belittle Created Mystery Something
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Writers in repressive societies are considered dangerous. That's why so many of them are in jail.

Considered Dangerous Jail Repressive
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Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own massive fantasies.

Act Fantasies Massive Never
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Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

Alone Concept Doom Invented
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I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

America Book Come Europe
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It's one thing to say, 'I don't like what you said to me and I find it rude and offensive,' but the moment you threaten violence in return, you've taken it to another level, where you lose whatever credibility you had.

Another Credibility Find Had
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The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.

Became Denied Insult Life
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You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

Being Discuss Great Loss
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The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people's lives.

Act Believe Blowing Bomber
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In the movies, the writer is just the servant, the employee.
Employee Just Movies Servant
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Someone asked me if I was afraid to write my memoirs. I told him: 'We have to stop drawing up accounts of fear! We live in a society in which people are allowed to tell their story, and that is what I do.'

Accounts Afraid Allowed Asked
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You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.

Based Been Date Ideas
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The problem of telling contemporary history is that your message gets outdated.

Contemporary Gets History Message
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In general, writers shouldn't be killed for what they write, though I can think of exceptions.

Exceptions General Can Think
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I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

Always Desk Discipline Get
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If you have children, you worry about the world you're leaving them.

About Children Leaving Them
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I am not in the business of suppressing books.

Am Books Business Suppressing
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In the real world, immeasurable hurt is caused by terrorists based in Pakistan who attack countries like India.

Attack Based Caused Countries
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Speaking as somebody with three sisters and a very largely female Muslim family, there is not a single woman I know in my family or in their friends who would have accepted the wearing of a veil.

Accepted Family Female Friends
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I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women.

Away Power Taking Think
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I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again, but there is no need to marry.

Again Am Fall Going
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The reason why books endure is because there are enough people who like them. It's the only reason why books last.
Because Books Endure Enough
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I don't read my books, I write them. Once I've finished the many years it usually takes me to write them, I can't bear to read them, because I've spent too long with them already. I'm not advertising them very well, am I?

Advertising Am Bear Because
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