"You boys know what tropism is, it's what……" — Tobias Wolff
"You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home."
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Tobias Wolff
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52 Quotes by Tobias Wolff
Tobias Wolff has 52 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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I teach one semester a year, and this year I'm just teaching one course during that semester, a writing workshop…
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Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.
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Our memories tell us who we are and they cannot be achieved through committee work, by consulting other people about…
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Reasons always came with a purpose, to give the appearance of a struggle between principle and desire. Principle had power…
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You felt it as a depth of ease in certain boys, their innate, affable assurance that they would not have…
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The very act of writing assumes, to begin with, that someone cares to hear what you have to say. It…
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Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.
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There’s no right way to tell all stories, only the right way to tell a particular story.
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I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of…
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One can imagine a world without essays. It would be a little poorer, of course, like a world without chess,…
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Had he learned nothing from all those years of teaching Hawthorne? Through story after story he'd led his boys to…
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You have to be kind of clued into them, they are a world of their own, and most people find…
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More All Quotes
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one of 128,558 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally…
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No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our…
— Hannah Arendt
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The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all…
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The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes…
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Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of…
— Hannah Arendt
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We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and…
— Hannah Arendt
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I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is…
— Pietro Aretino
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We must all make peace so that we can all live in peace.
— Jean-Bertrand Aristide
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The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela,…
— Jean-Bertrand Aristide
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As we all know, many people remain buried under tons of rubble and debris, waiting to be rescued. When we…
— Jean-Bertrand Aristide
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Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.
— Aristophanes
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A friend to all is a friend to none.
— Aristotle
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