Ifs Quote by Dani Shapiro

“As a writer we are our own instruments; we need to protect our instrument, because no one will protect it if we don't.”

Dani Shapiro

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“The writer’s life requires courage, patience, empathy, openness. It requires the ability to be alone with oneself. Gentle with oneself. To be disciplined, and…

Dani Shapiro

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I never troll for material. It simply presents itself, and is always unmistakable. This is why I want to roll my eyes when people…

Dani Shapiro

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I had never really felt settled in Brooklyn. I think it had to do with growing up in New Jersey and being someone who…

Dani Shapiro

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When I near the end of a book, it feels as if the entire universe meets me more than halfway and supports me. The…

Dani Shapiro

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Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write

Dani Shapiro

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We don't choose what's going to wake us up.

Dani Shapiro

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Everything changes. The more I try to hold on to the moment, the more it slips through my fingers.

Dani Shapiro

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There is no end to the promotion. There is no end to the possibilities. You can continue to promote a book for years, literally.

Dani Shapiro

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We can't protect ourselves from pain and heartache.

Dani Shapiro

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A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden it. Where she's stored the good stuff. She needs to keep gnawing at it, even after all the meat seems to be gone. When a student of mine says (okay, whines) that she's impatient, or tired,…

Dani Shapiro

“Oh, child! Somewhere inside you, your future has already unfurled like one of those coiled-up party streamers, once shiny, shaken loose, floating gracefully for a brief moment, now trampled underfoot after the party is over. The future you’re capable of imagining is already a thing of the past. Who did you think you would grow up to become? You could…

Dani Shapiro

I never feel so alive as when I'm writing and the work is going well.

Dani Shapiro

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More Ifs quotes

Women still, when they have breast cancer, go to work; they still lead their lives. They have to. I just did what I was supposed to do. I didn't want to exploit it or be too "actory" about it, if that makes any sense. That's also why I didn't shave my head; I feel like you have to earn that.…

Monica Potter

Most of us are convinced that we are our egos, which is who we think we are. The ego is part of our incarnation.…

Ram Dass

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Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat…

Simon Schama

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If you ask an introvert a question, wait until she thinks about it. Introverts think before speaking, not through speaking. If you want to…

Laurie Helgoe

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Many individuals spend a considerable portion of their lifetimes in terror of one imagined catastrophe or another. The classic is that your immortal soul will be consigned to eternal torment in the never-ending subterranean barbecue if you fail to follow the whacky edicts of one particular set of puckered dogwhistles or another. You may recall from the great movie Strange…

L. Neil Smith

Obviously, if you don't love life, you can't enjoy an oyster.

Eleanor Clark

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If I don't have pressure, I don't function.

Ferran Adria

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If you restore a car, and you're making money, then you're doing it wrong.

Jay Leno

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I understand that it's the music that keeps me alive... That's my lifeblood. And to give that up for, like, the TV, the cars, the houses - that's not the American dream. That's the booby prize, in the end. Those are the booby prizes. And if you fall for them - if, when you achieve them, you believe that this…

Bruce Springsteen

If we gave up our freedom as the price of security, we would no longer be the great nation that we are.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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If my campaign is not in the debate, we will not be talking about how we really fix this problem of endless and expanding war, why we need to cut the military budget by 50%, why we need to bring back our troops scattered overseas, the police force of the world, in over a hundred countries, something like eight hundred…

Jill Stein