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I Quotes

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All I Quotes

“It used to be that you could get a lot of recognition by writing about Canada, as long as it was about small towns and nature.' 'Really?' 'Yeah. You could have canoes and the prairies or, also, sad women, very sad women who were fat or whose husbands had left them or something. There was a lady who wrote about fucking a bear, which was like a union with the land. There was a lady who wrote about mystical experiences she had at a cottage in northern Ontario. I was never sure what that was about. They were very important at one time, very stern and important. I had to study them in school. Anyway, he was one of them. He concentrated on the prairies, with a lot of native names, and wise native people, like there's a young boy with an Ojibway grandmother who will teach him the ways of the forest, sort of thing, and there's a lot of history, like a lot of the Riel rebellion for example.' 'The what?' 'History. And there's a lot of disaster, on the prairies, like people having to rebuild their sod houses after floods and so on.' They drove on the humming highway for a while. Then Nicola said, 'So you haven't answered my question.' 'What question?' 'Do you think he's any good?' 'Oh. The thing is... it's not, it doesn't matter. It's important. So it doesn't matter if I think it's good or not.' 'Okay. So it doesn't matter. So I'm asking you. What you think. Do. You. Think. It's. Good.' She slapped her bare thigh. James paused for a long moment... He said, 'There's one Boben book, I think it's Cold Season, or maybe it's Comfort of Winter, which ends with the line, "a story which Canadians must never tire of telling." What do you think of that line? A story which Canadians must never tire of telling.' She shrugged. 'I have no idea.' 'I'll tell you what you think of it. You don't give a shit. I'll tell you what I think of it. I don't give a shit either. But I also think it's the worst bullshit I've ever heard. I think,' he said, accelerating, 'that Ludwig Boben is a fucking asshole.”

AssholesCanlitBullshit Lit
Author:Russell Smith
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“It used to be that you needed a $500-million-a-year company in order to reach a worldwide audience of consumers. Now, all you need is a Steam account. That changes a whole bunch of stuff. It's kind of a boring 'gee, information processing changes a stuff' story, but it's going to have an impact on every single company.”

NeedsYearsKindWholeStoriesUsedOrderStuffCompanyMillionsAudienceInformationNeededAccountsImpactBoringBunchUsed To BeConsumersSteamProcessingInformation Processing
Author:Gabe Newell
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“It used to be that you would go into a writing program and what you would learn was how to write a short story. You would pick up the magazines and you would be taught from the magazines how to write a short story. Nowadays student writers are learning to write novels because that market is gone, so the ones who are drawn to the form are doing it really for reasons of their own and that's really exciting.”

WritingReasonNovelStudentsProgramExcitingShort Story
Author:Lorin Stein
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“It used to be the custom for the bachelor dinner to take place the night before the wedding. Now, however, the bridesmaids' and ushers' dinner is usually on that night, for a groom realizes that he and his attendants need some time in which to recover sufficiently to be able to distinguish the altar from the organ and walk up the aisle with no mishaps.”

NeedsAbleUsedNightRealizingWalksDinnerUsed To BeCustomsOrgansAltarsBachelorsAisleMishapsBridesmaids
Author:Alice-Leone Moats
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“It used to be the Right that was pessimistic while the Left was unfailingly optimistic. Today on the Right it's 'sunrise' neoliberalism and, on the Left, the Tristes Tropiques. If it is Italian terrorism's ambition to destabilize the state, then it is absurd: the state is already so nonexistent that it would be a joke to try and kill it off any more. Or else it is fuelled by the perverse desire to do too much which might lead to law and order and the state becoming more stable, or at least being perpetually reestablished, fragile as they are. Perhaps that is the terrorists' dream. They long for an immortal enemy. Since if it no longer exists, it is much more difficult to destroy it. Tautologies like these really are the genuine article. But terrorism is tautological. And its ultimate lesson is of the order of the syllogism: if the State really existed, terrorism would make political sense. Since it manifestly does not, that proves the State doesn't exist.”

OptimismTerrorismPessimismStatePolitical SpectrumLevi Strauss
Author:Jean Baudrillard
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“It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that really change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe.”

PeopleWorldBigsUsedViewsHalfModernEventsMovementChangedTheoryHugePoliticianEuropeWingsChaosPopulationStormTinyUsed To BeChanging The WorldBombsButterflyOld FashionedJungleEarthquakesManiacsChaos TheoryTiny Things
Author:Neil Gaiman
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“It used to be trained professionals doing animation and they were great. Now they have celebrities and famous actors doing the voices, but that does not always work. But I think this film turned out really well, partly because the three of us (me, Ray and Denis) are comedians who are used to doing solo acts and doing certain types of voices. The three of us are New York guys, we all came up the same way in the profession and we are all edgy and enjoy doing family movies. It was a good combination I think.”

ThinkingWayWellsDoeFilmUsedGuyCertainThreeActorsEnjoyVoiceNew YorkTypeProfessionUsed To BeCombinationComedianRaysSoloAnimationEdgyFamous Actor
Author:John Leguizamo
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“It used to be when a good record was about to drop you heard it out of every car and every kid with a boom box was playing it 3-4 weeks before it came out. Now it's not like that you just see ipods left and right and there's no anticipation factor. I have yet to see something drop with the anticipation that Illmatic had or that Ready 2 Die and Cuban Linx had. Those records had real anticipation factors.”

RealKidsUsedDiesLeftRecordsHeardWeekCarReadyBoxesFactorsUsed To BeAnticipationCubanIpodsLeft And RightGood RecordsIllmatic
Author:Mic Geronimo
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“It used to be with chocolate. I would put chocolate in my studio and say, "You know, Nat, there's this chocolate you can have if you get over there." And usually if I got over there, I would start writing. Sometimes I need get out of the house and go to a café and write. Sometimes I'll write with other friends to get myself going. And sometimes I just say "Ok, Nat, enough. Go one hour. Keep your hand going." I'll do whatever it takes.”

IfsKnowsNeedsWritingSometimesEnoughHandsUsedHouseHoursStudiosUsed To BeChocolateGet OverWhatever It TakesOne Hour
Author:Natalie Goldberg
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“It used to be, if you wanted to have a strong, influential voice in the feminist movement, you really needed to be part of this New York/D.C. elite group of feminists, or part of a mainstream feminist organization. And now it's kind of an amazing thing that you can just start a blog and put your voice out there and build your readership.”

IfsKindWantedUsedStrongVoiceGroupsNew YorkMovementNeededOrganizationFeministUsed To BeElitesMainstreamBlogsInfluentialAmazing ThingsReadershipFeminist Movement
Author:Jessica Valenti
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“It used to be, if you were a reporter, you wrote a story and then you moved on to the next one. We were used to people coming to the New York Times. We waited for them to turn on our website or to pick up our print paper and see what we have. We now understand that we have to make our stories available to our readers. A lot of people get their news from Facebook or Twitter and we want to make sure that they see some of our best stories there, too. We do this more aggressively now than we did before.”

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Author:Dean Baquet
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“It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.”

IfsTryingFirstsArtStillsHappensUsedPleasureQualityToo MuchFailingDiscoverySightMeritFacultySuspectsWorks Of Art
Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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