James Lasdun famous quotes

There is something uncannily adaptive about anti-Semitism: the way it can hide, unsuspected, in the most progressive minds.
-- James Lasdun

#Mind #Way #Progressive

I got into online trading. It was alarmingly easy to do. I went through the whole cycle of emotions, from supreme self-confidence to total impotence. I broke even in the end.
-- James Lasdun

#Self Confidence #Emotion #Easy

To me sympathy for a character has little to do with how morally upstanding or wicked they are. All that really matters for me is how human and interesting they are. I happen to be drawn to characters who operate under intense internal pressure, which often comes from some deep psychological conflict.
-- James Lasdun

#Character #Interesting #Wicked

Maybe I'm perverse, but the question of "rooting" for a character, or setting out to write a character for whom other people will root, has never had anything to do with why I read or write fiction. As long as the writing and story remain alive, intense, invigorating, provoking, the characters can be as demonic or saintly as the author wants.
-- James Lasdun

#Writing #Character #Roots

America as a setting seems inexhaustibly fascinating to me, and I think there's something about the outsider viewpoint that works for me. Being of Jewish descent in England always carried a vague sense of being foreign, while not being a practicing Jew made it hard to think of myself as fully Jewish either. So living here in a way just clarifies that terminal outsider position - makes it somehow official, which I like.
-- James Lasdun

#Thinking #America #Viewpoints

The mind is like a river. The thoughts are like the various droplets of water. We are submerged in that water. Stay on the bank and watch your mind.

You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer.

Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?

Rogue Squadron doesn’t run. Unless we really, really have to." "No, this will be Wraith Squadron’s mission." "We don’t mind running. Even when we don’t have to.

You just can't let anything or anyone get in the way of who you are.

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

I will say that the environment I grew up in was not the most progressive.

Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask; by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?

Change is constant in a progressive country.

I believe I am a moderate Democrat: I am pro-business and also progressive.