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4391 Novelist Quotes

A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.

Am I Am Man Needed
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I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

Belly Hair His I Love
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It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.

Always Back Date Existed
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Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

Constant Dying Education Everything
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I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.

Alone Being Born Handicap
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One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.
Always Desperate Doubt Hope
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I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.

Bee Call Decided Even
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Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

Art Faith Freedom Neither
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I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.

Always Believe End I Believe
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A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss.

Almost Beautiful Beautiful Thing Desire
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I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

Basis Calls Come Conscience
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The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.

Family He His Leave
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Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force.

Above Believe Book Characteristic
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Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

Geometry Poetry Precise Thing
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One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness.

Atrocious Devoted Effort Fanatical
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Style is as much under the words as in the words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh of a work.

Flesh Much Soul Style
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Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal.

Animal Beautiful Created Excess
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One mustn't always believe that feeling is everything. In the arts, it is nothing without form.

Always Arts Believe Everything
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One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

Apple Ask France Happiness
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The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

Attracts Better Criticism Fleas
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The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

Art Avoid Being Close
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Terms like that, 'Humane Society,' are devised with people like me in mind, who don't care to dwell on what happens to the innocent.

Terms Like That Humane
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Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.

Libraries Are The One
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The truth needs so little rehearsal.

The Truth Needs So
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We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.

We Are Animals Born
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Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up.

Wats Elections Both Are
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It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.

Surprising How Much Memory
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It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't.

Kills You To Watch
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Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.

Few People Know Clearly
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Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.

Pain Reaches Heart Electrical
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What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.

What Keeps You Going
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People's dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It's what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.

People's Dreams Are Made
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The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

The Very Least You
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What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.

What You Loose Blindness
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The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it.

The House Important Thing
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Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.

Memory Is Complicated Thing
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Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.

Sometimes The Strength Motherhood
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I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.

Fearsome Mind Throw My
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Stop a minute, right where you are. Relax your shoulders, shake your head and spine like a dog shaking off cold water. Tell that imperious voice in your head to be still.

Stop Minute Right Where
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To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another that is surely the basic instinct - crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is!

Hopeful To Embrace One
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Small change, small wonders - these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life.

Small Change Wonders These
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I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.

Best Work Do My
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I never think that anything I'm writing is bluntly political in any way. I'm not going for commentary.

I Never Think Anything
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Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.

Fiction Essays Can Create
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What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.

What A Writer Do
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When you pick up a novel from the bed side table, you put down your own life at the same time and you become another person for the duration.

When You Pick Up
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Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.

Empathy Really The Opposite
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It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water.

Seems Very Safe Me
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There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe.

There's Always Part Your
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I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.

Not Pretending Be Ingenious
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