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Allan Gurganus Quotes
'The Practical Heart' was published one week before the World Trade towers collapsed. Book reviewing and all else in our culture stopped dead-still for half a year. I went on the book tour anyway. But I felt like the apostle Paul going unto the catacombs where scared believers hid and prayed.
~ Allan Gurganus
Anyway
Apostle
Before
Believers
Book
Book Tour
Collapsed
Culture
Else
Felt
Going
Half
Heart
Hid
Like
Our
Paul
Practical
Prayed
Published
Reviewing
Scared
Stopped
Tour
Towers
Trade
Unto
Week
Where
World
World Trade
Year
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After a sound public education, I attended Penn and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After being drafted into the military and studying Indonesian, I emerged as a writer, not a painter.
~ Allan Gurganus
Academy
After
Arts
Attended
Being
Drafted
Education
Emerged
Fine
Fine Arts
Military
Painter
Penn
Pennsylvania
Public
Public Education
Sound
Studying
Writer
design
copy
Collections collect collectors. It doesn't work the other way around. A certain object misses its own kind and communicates that to some person who surrounds it with rhyming items; these become at first a quorum, then a selective, addictive madness.
~ Allan Gurganus
Addictive
Around
Become
Certain
Collect
Collections
Collectors
First
Items
Kind
Madness
Misses
Object
Other
Own
Person
Rhyming
Selective
Some
Surrounds
Then
Way
Who
Work
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For anybody living out their twenties, Sex and Career remain major topics: being sexy can help give you a career, and having a career can make others finally find you sexier.
~ Allan Gurganus
Anybody
Being
Career
Finally
Find
Give
Having
Help
Living
Major
Make
Others
Out
Remain
Sex
Sexier
Sexy
Topics
Twenties
You
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Having great friends in New York is like having great friends on an expedition into Darkest Africa in the early 19th century. You need them. And you need sponsorship on a daily basis. I have a painter friend here who says, 'I need two compliments a day just to break even.' And we gave them to each other, and we got them - and honestly got them.
~ Allan Gurganus
19th Century
Africa
Basis
Break
Century
Compliments
Daily
Daily Basis
Darkest
Day
Each
Early
Even
Expedition
Friend
Friends
Gave
Got
Great
Great Friends
Having
Here
Honestly
Just
Like
Need
New
New York
Other
Painter
Says
Sponsorship
Them
Two
Who
York
You
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I don't think anybody who has any wisdom regrets a minute of their life, as long as it takes you to the next minute, when things get a little better, and even when it doesn't.
~ Allan Gurganus
Any
Anybody
Better
Even
Get
Life
Little
Long
Minute
Next
Regrets
Takes
Things
Think
Who
Wisdom
You
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I rise at 6. Strong coffee helps me face the paper edition of 'The New York Times.' It daily challenges my own capacity for faking anything deranged enough to sound true. I work till 2 P.M. unless I am in the throes of finishing something. I rewrite to be reread.
~ Allan Gurganus
Am
Anything
Capacity
Challenges
Coffee
Daily
Deranged
Edition
Enough
Face
Faking
Finishing
Helps
I Am
Me
My Own
New
New York
New York Times
Own
Paper
Rewrite
Rise
Something
Sound
Strong
Till
Times
True
Unless
Work
York
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I think it's a false distinction to say that conversation and composition are separate. Because even as we speak, I'm seeing. Every interview is different, and I'm finding new ways to talk about ancient preoccupations. And I sometimes come on something that's immensely helpful and valuable. Plus I like the sensation of conversation.
~ Allan Gurganus
About
Ancient
Because
Come
Composition
Conversation
Different
Distinction
Even
Every
False
Finding
Helpful
I Think
Immensely
Interview
Like
New
New Ways
Plus
Say
Seeing
Sensation
Separate
Something
Sometimes
Speak
Talk
Think
Valuable
Ways
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I was 16 before I met another passionate collector. One summer, I visited England; a new friend took me calling on his dotty, brilliant old aunt. She occupied a quaint house in Kent. Its walls were lined with glass-fronted cases full of what? Ancient shoe buckles.
~ Allan Gurganus
Ancient
Another
Aunt
Before
Brilliant
Calling
Cases
Collector
England
Friend
Full
His
House
Kent
Lined
Me
Met
New
Occupied
Old
Passionate
She
Shoe
Summer
Took
Visited
Walls
Were
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I was born in Rocky Mount, NC. The town of 24,000 proved a great place to spend the first 17 years of life. But, after that, onward, outward.
~ Allan Gurganus
After
Born
First
Great
Great Place
I Was Born
Life
Mount
Onward
Outward
Place
Proved
Rocky
Spend
Town
Years
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I'm a great admirer of Primo Levi's work. It's always mind-boggling, the idea of how much pain people can endure and still come back from the edge with a sense of humor, with this tremendous animal desire we have to get on with life.
~ Allan Gurganus
Admirer
Always
Animal
Back
Come
Desire
Edge
Endure
Get
Great
How
How Much
Humor
Idea
Levi
Life
Mind-Boggling
Much
Pain
People
Sense
Sense Of Humor
Still
Tremendous
Work
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It was 1981. I was working on a novel. And I put that novel aside one day after I read a newspaper article. The story said there were 19 women still on the pension payroll who were Confederate war widows. They were women who very early in their lives had married very old men.
~ Allan Gurganus
After
Article
Aside
Confederate
Day
Early
Had
Lives
Married
Men
Newspaper
Novel
Old
Old Men
One Day
Payroll
Pension
Put
Read
Said
Still
Story
Very
War
Were
Who
Widows
Women
Working
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Living in Manhattan opened me to whole new sets of things to envy, study, gather and imagine stealing. A full-size 1809 German harp, beautifully painted with three goddesses, covered in a pea-green coat of great silvery refinement: mine for $180. Though all its strings were broken, its beauty let it claim a quarter of my one - bedroom.
~ Allan Gurganus
Beautifully
Beauty
Bedroom
Broken
Claim
Coat
Covered
Envy
Gather
German
Goddesses
Great
Harp
Imagine
Living
Manhattan
Me
Mine
New
Opened
Painted
Quarter
Refinement
Sets
Stealing
Strings
Study
Things
Though
Three
Were
Whole
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My mother had a master's degree and had been a schoolteacher before she started having kids at 30. But my father's family were landowners, farmer-merchants. Moneymaking was extremely important, like one of those semi-rapacious families in Lillian Hellman, where they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
~ Allan Gurganus
Been
Before
Degree
Everything
Extremely
Families
Family
Father
Had
Having
Important
Kids
Know
Like
Master
Mother
Nothing
Price
She
Started
Those
Value
Were
Where
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People have asked me about the 19th century and how I knew so much about it. And the fact is I really grew up in the 19th century, because North Carolina in the 1950s, the early years of my childhood, was exactly synchronous with North Carolina in the 1850s. And I used every scrap of knowledge that I had.
~ Allan Gurganus
1950s
19th Century
About
Asked
Because
Carolina
Century
Childhood
Early
Early Years
Every
Exactly
Fact
Grew
Had
How
Knew
Knowledge
Me
Much
North
North Carolina
People
Really
Scrap
Up
Used
Years
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People rich enough to redecorate every 10 months are certainly careless with antique furniture. I found four 1760 French side chairs, tapestry seats intact. Claiming them proved easier than persuading any cabdriver to transport the things.
~ Allan Gurganus
Antique
Any
Careless
Certainly
Chairs
Claiming
Easier
Enough
Every
Found
Four
French
Furniture
Intact
Months
People
Proved
Rich
Seats
Side
Tapestry
Than
Them
Things
Transport
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Sometimes the books most restrained about sex, even deeply scandalized by it, can whisper to us with the greatest hidden force. I am a huge admirer of the recently deceased, always underranked Evan S. Connell.
~ Allan Gurganus
About
Admirer
Always
Am
Books
Deceased
Deeply
Even
Force
Greatest
Hidden
Huge
I Am
Most
Recently
Restrained
Sex
Sometimes
Us
Whisper
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The luckiest person in the world is somebody who is born into a small, shabby-genteel town on a major railway connection with 24,000 souls and a bird sanctuary and whose grandfather owns a farm and whose father owns a business -whose family is mildly prosperous but not rich, which means you can leave the town.
~ Allan Gurganus
Bird
Born
Business
Connection
Family
Farm
Father
Grandfather
Leave
Luckiest
Major
Means
Owns
Person
Prosperous
Railway
Rich
Sanctuary
Small
Somebody
Souls
Town
Which
Who
Whose
World
You
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To shy away from human extremes and human sensuality makes for bone-dry fiction. A world parched of our sexual releases and our tumultuous daily emotional lives is deeply impoverished. It is not lifelike, at least life as I remember living it.
~ Allan Gurganus
Away
Daily
Deeply
Emotional
Extremes
Fiction
Human
I Remember
Impoverished
Least
Life
Lives
Living
Makes
Our
Release
Remember
Sensuality
Sexual
Shy
Tumultuous
World
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copy
When I grew up, there were locked cabinets in public libraries. You needed parental permission if you were under eighteen. I was let down by the overblown reputations of some hardcore fictional works.
~ Allan Gurganus
Down
Eighteen
Fictional
Grew
Hardcore
Let Down
Libraries
Locked
Needed
Parental
Permission
Public
Reputations
Some
Up
Were
Works
You
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copy
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AuthorName
Allan Gurganus
Profession
Novelist
BirthDate
11 June, 1947
Country
United States
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