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4391 Novelist Quotes

Nature alone can speak to our intelligence an imperishable language, never changing, because it remains within the bounds of eternal truth and of what is absolutely noble and beautiful.

Nature Speak Intelligence Language
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The constant winds of petty appetite dissipate the power of response.
Constant winds Appetite Power
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Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual condition of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery.

About Condition Control Cultivating
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I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me.

Arguing Bothers Lose Me
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Only white men have the luxury of ignoring race.
Ignoring Luxury Men Only
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For me, university was just awful because it was closing one door after the other of all these candy shops of professional possibilities.

After Awful Because Candy
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We will live with racism for ever. But senses of self, senses of belonging, senses of us and of others? Those are up for grabs.

Belonging Ever Live Others
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I used to work for 12 or 14 hours at a time but the digital age has made such happy immersions almost impossible.

Age Almost Digital Happy
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I keep a quotes journal - of every sentence that I've wanted to remember from my reading of the past 30 years.

Every Journal Keep Past
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Out of grad school, I worked as a tech writer for a while before going into computer coding for a living.

Before Computer Going Grad
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I think that if the novel's task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life - technology and science.

Central Contemporary Describe Facts
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The 'information novel' shouldn't be a curiosity. It should be absolutely mainstream.

Absolutely Curiosity Information Mainstream
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The desire to live in our imagination is driven by this suspicion that we're disembodied sensibilities cobbled into our bodies. That idea has infused most of human thought since the very beginning.

Beginning Bodies Desire Driven
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I'd like, each time out as a writer, to reinvent who I am and what I'm doing. That's one of the great pleasures and rewards of the occupation.

Am Doing Each Great
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We don't consider the roles that we're taking in making the world the way it is.

Consider Making Roles Taking
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I would say the flip side to my fascination with systems is a fascination with components. So many of my books are dialogues between little and big.

Between Big Books Components
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The Midwest is such a tabula rasa.

Midwest Such The Tabula
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If you're going to immerse yourself in a project for three years, why not stake out a chunk of the world that is completely alien to you and go traveling?

Alien Chunk Go Going
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The thing that makes reading and writing suspect in the eyes of the market economy is that it's not corrupted.

Corrupted Economy Eyes Makes
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Reading is the last act of secular prayer.
Act Last Prayer Reading
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My dream has always been to suspend myself in space when I write, and lying horizontal in bed is the closest to doing that.

Always Bed Been Closest
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Everything interests me.
Everything Interests
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I really like science because it seems to be that place where you get the big picture, everything connects.

Because Big Connects Everything
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I like to travel and connect.

Connect Like Travel
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What we can do should never by itself determine what we choose to do, yet this is the way technology tends to work.

Choose Determine Itself Never
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All the different ways we know the world all come from the brain, and they all depend on each other to make sense.

Brain Come Depend Different
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This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.

About Binary Book Character
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We build our technologies as a way of addressing all our anxieties and desires. They are our passions congealed into these prosthetic extensions of ourselves. And they do it in a way that reflects what we dream ourselves capable of doing.

Addressing Anxieties Build Capable
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Novel-writing is the only place where someone who would have liked to do anything can still do that vicariously.

Anything Liked Only Place
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In 25 years of writing novels, I've never had anything that felt like writer's block.
Anything Block Felt Had
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I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design.

Another Arrange Constraint Design
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Type a few lines of code, you create an organism.

Code Create Few Lines
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Until I was 42, I could fit everything that I owned into two suitcases.

Could Everything Fit Owned
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My goal for technology has always been to reach a point where the technological mediation becomes invisible.

Always Becomes Been Goal
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The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.
Arguments Change Person Mind
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What you make from a tree should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down.

Miraculous Make Tree What
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Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind.

Librarian Service Occupation Attendant
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I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.

Create Darkness Echo Fight
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It's becoming very much like 1979 again

Again Becoming Like Much
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I'd like to see the bay cleaned up before I die.

Bay Before Cleaned Die
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The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.

Artist Bow His Imagination
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Don't leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.

Drawn Evidence Inference Leave
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Men simply copied the realities of their hearts when they built prisons.

Built Copied Hearts Men
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The impulse to dream was slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing.

Again Beaten Books Dream
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Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.

Corrupt Cynics Equally Everybody
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It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.

Become Changing Conservative Idea
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Belief is the death of intelligence.

Belief Death Intelligence
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Only the madman is absolutely sure.
Absolutely Madman Only Sure
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A true initiation never ends.

Ends Initiation Never True
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An Enlightened Master is ideal only if your goal is to become a Benighted Slave.

Become Enlightened Goal Ideal
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