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Interview Quotes

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Interview Quotes

“I also often ask my guests about what they consider to be their invisible weaknesses and shortcomings. I do this because these are the characteristics that define us no less than our strengths. What we feel sets us apart from other people is often the thing that shapes us as individuals. This may be especially true of writers and actors, many of whom first started to develop their observational skills as a result of being sidelined from typical childhood or adolescent activities because of an infirmity or a feeling of not fitting in. Or so I’ve come to believe from talking to so many writers and actors over the years.”

ActorsLonelinessSelf AwarenessIndividualityPersonal DevelopmentJournalismInterviewsWritersIntrospectionArtistsShortcomingsChildhood TraumaInterviewWeaknessesDefining MomentsInterviewingOutcastsNot Fitting InDefining YourselfWhat Makes Us Who We AreWhat Shapes Us
Book:All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists
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“The complexity of the so-called individual that’s been praised for decades in America somehow has narrowed itself to the ‘me’. When I was a young girl we were called citizens – American citizens. We were second-class citizens, but that was the word. In the 50s and 60s they started calling us consumers. So we did – consume. Now they don’t use those words any more – it’s the American taxpayer and those are different attitudes.”

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Author:Toni Morrison
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“Don’t wait for the perfect line, just write. Let your thoughts spill onto the page in their raw form, then revise and refine. The editing process is your opportunity to catch human errors, rethink your choices, and decide what to keep, revise, or let go. Make sure your writing clearly communicates your intent. Be mindful of consistency and of the meaning every word brings to your lines. When receiving feedback or suggestions, don’t defend but reflect. You are the ultimate authority on your work, so take the time to thoughtfully consider input before accepting or rejecting it, and refine your piece accordingly. Know your strengths—but more importantly, know your limitations and where improvement is needed. Awareness of your limits is just as vital as recognizing your strengths.”

WisdomGrowthCreativityHonestyHumilitySelf AwarenessImprovementWriting ProcessInterviewAdvice To Emerging Writers
Author:Suman Pokhrel
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“If you have dealt with liars, even pathological ones who pass polygraph tests, you know the signs to look for. The liar blinks just before the end of the lie, or he keeps his eyelids stitched to his brow. He folds his arms on his chest, subconsciously concealing his deception. The voice becomes warm, a bit saccharine; sometimes there's an ethereal glow in the face. He repeats his statements unnecessarily and peppers his speech with adverbs and hyperbole. The first-person pronouns 'I,' 'me,' 'mine,' and 'myself' dominate his rhetoric. Conversely, the truth teller is laconic and seems bored with the discussion, not caring whether you get it right or not.”

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Book:Robicheaux
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“Prior to your interview, select the proper suit and the nicest shoes and come armed with information about the company too. Just like in a marriage, you don’t want to sign on the dotted line until you find out you’re compatible. Remember, in so many ways, careering is just like life.”

InspirationalSuccessWorkPreparationJobCareerExploreCareer DevelopmentInterviewCareering
Book:Careering: The Pocket Guide to Exploring Your Future Career
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“Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy. Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that.”

FantasyScience FictionMythologyDragonsInterviewMidwestVirginia WoolfJungian PsychologyMale MenopauseThe Onion
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“I think people should take mythology much more seriously, because it tells us an awful lot about the history of the human race. We tend to dismiss it as 'fairy tales,' when it isn't. Fairy tales in themselves are about fundamentals of human nature. And they keep being reinvented in different ways. Fantasy acknowledges that, whereas a lot of modern literature is trying to distance itself from 'story,' never mind anything else. Which is why a lot of books are read by the critics, then people buy them, put them on their shelves, and don't really read them much, because they're not very interesting!”

LiteratureFantasyMythologyInterviewLocus Online
Author:Jan Siegel
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“I think sometimes in literature we kind of police ourselves. I know a lot of people talked about Twilight, and they would say, oh, but the heroine, she lets this man make her decisions. And I thought, that may not be the particular fantasy or trope that works for me. But listen man, I read Wuthering Heights. I wanted me a little Heathcliff action. I mean, why can't we indulge that fantasy and also be like, “And now I would like the ERA passed, please. Also, this lipstick is fuckin' killer.”

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Author:Libba Bray
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“The reason why the book begins with the wish to “play back” how the two met is precisely to see if repeating the scenario might tell the narrator why he is so thoroughly smitten, to play with the scenario all over again, perhaps to master it, as Freud says about repetition. But there cannot be a “reason.” An attraction that needs a reason is not a reason the heart or the body cares much about.”

InterviewAcimanQuarterly Conversation
Author:André Aciman
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“His office was a spider’s lair of silver thread and tempting promises, a page out of Power Architecture Magazine. The dean copied the design from President Lyndon Johnson’s old senate office. The room narrowed toward his desk, an architectural device that channeled all eyes toward the dean, and his chair was slightly elevated, forcing visitors to look up. The two visitors’ chairs were both lowered and oversized, making each guest feel like a child, swimming in too much chair. His architect had assured him it was a subliminal masterpiece.”

DeanPromisesIntimidationInterviewSubliminalBenzehabeUnassimilatedSilver ThreadSpider S Lair
Author:Michael Benzehabe
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