Louis Begley famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

I may well do some more polemical writing, if a subject that fires me up comes along. Apart from that possibility, I would like to continue to tell stories so long as I have stories to tell.
-- Louis Begley

#Writing #Fire #Long
I have no interest in writing confessions, in deliberately baring myself to my readers. I prefer to remain behind a screen.
-- Louis Begley

#Writing #Confession #Interest
If a comparative-literature major had existed at Harvard College for undergraduates I would have surely gone in that direction.
-- Louis Begley

#College #Gone #Literature
As you know, I am a novelist, and I really want to write novels. But I knew enough about the Dreyfus case to understand immediately why what happened to Dreyfus was not merely a cause celebre from the end of the 19th century, but an event that could be shown to teach us lessons of the greatest importance for our own time.
-- Louis Begley

#Writing #Novelists #Events
I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English.
-- Louis Begley

#Writing #Thinking #Self
I think that Jews - because they are a distinct, gifted and successful group that differentiates itself from societies in which it lives - are vulnerable wherever the rule of law is not paramount.
-- Louis Begley

#Successful #Thinking #Law
In legal practice, in the representation of clients, I have always felt deeply engaged, serene, and not all inclined to stand aside. I have always done whatever needed to be done, and have usually gotten my way.
-- Louis Begley

#Practice #Done #Way
My views about the safety of Jews in the world have not been changed by the work on the Dreyfus affair or, for that matter, by the work I did on Franz Kafka for the book on him I published a year before the Dreyfus book appeared.
-- Louis Begley

#Book #Views #Years

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.
Iâ€™m not a fan of â€˜write what you know.â€™ If you donâ€™t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing â€˜The Year of Living Biblically.â€™ That was kind of the point â€“ to learn.
The only way to write is well and how you do it is your own damn business.
We two remake our world by naming it / Together, knowing what words mean for us / And for the other for whom current coin / Is cold speech--but we say, the tree, the pool, / And see the fire in the air, the sun, our sun, / Anybody's sun, the world's sun, but here, now / Particularly our sun....
We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its goodness.
From moment then to moment their desire Gained strength, and wisdom fled before love's fire; Passion engulfed them, and these lovers lay Entwined together till the break of day.
I don't know how long a child will remain utterly static in front of the television, but my guess is that it could be well into their thirties.
How long does getting thin take?
I tried the paleo diet, which is the caveman diet - lots of meat. And I tried the calorie restriction diet: The idea is that if you eat very, very little - if you're on the verge of starvation, you will live a very long time, whether or not you want to, of course.
People should be left to believe what they like, so long as they harm no one else. Apart from normal expectations of politeness, it is not however clear why people should require their personal beliefs to be treated with special sensitivity by others, to the point that if others fail to tip-toe respectfully around them they will start throwing bombs.

Louis Begley famous quotes

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