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Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal functions, as either a storyteller or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder, love, and daring. When we cease to tell or listen, then we no longer exist as a people.

Bryce Courtenay

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Bryce Courtenay
Age: 79 †
Born: 1933
Born: January 1
Died: 2012
Died: November 22
Novelist
Johannesburg
Gauteng
South Africa
Arthur Bryce Courtenay
Wonder
Cease
Listener
Tell
Cross
Functions
Two
Crosses
Listeners
Love
Function
Storyteller
People
Exist
Daring
Listen
Designed
Longer
Immortal
Either
Tales
Legged

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Intelligence is a harder gift. For this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it, and maybe toward the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance. -Doc
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I am essentially an entertainer and a storyteller.
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I wish to cup knowledge in my hand and drink it as one drinks water by the side of the stream.
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I'm going to die with my mind intact. And to me that is the most exciting way you could possibly die.
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I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.
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The man assumes the role of the loner, the thinker and the searching spirit who calls the privileged and the powerful to task. The power of one was the courage to remain separate, th think through the truth and not be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power, whatever the cost.
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Your brain, Peekay, has two functions it is a place for original thought, but also it is a reference library. Use it to tell you where to look, and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been
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You've got to be quick on your feet in this world if you want to survive. Though once you know the rules, it is not too hard to play the game.
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Sometimes, very occasionally, you do your best boxing with your mouth.
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Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human.
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Advertising seemed almost natural to me because it was a business where you had to inform, persuade and educate. And so from being a junior copywriter to being the creative director of one of the largest advertising agencies in the country took me 4.5 years, which is, well, a fairly spectacular rise.
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It is better just to get on with the business of living and minding your own business and maybe, if God likes the way you do things, he may just let you flower for a day or a night. But don't go pestering and begging and telling him all your stupid little sins, that way you will spoil his day.
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. . . besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child.
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Let me conclude by saying in my experience the glittering prizes in life come more to those who persevere despite setback and disappointment than they do to the exceptionally gifted who, with the confidence of the talents bestowed upon them, often pursue the tasks leading to success with less determination.
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Inside all people there is love, also the need to take care of the other man who is his brother. Inside everyone is a savage, but there is also happening tenderness and compassion.
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People say I don't write books, I make Christmas presents.
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It's been a privilege to write for you and to have you accept me as a storyteller in your lives, Now, as my story draws to an end, may I say only, `Thank you. You have been simply wonderful'.
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Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it.
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I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it exists within us we cannot be destroyed.
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It's good to be a little frightened. It's good to respect your opponent. It keeps you sharp. In the fight game, the head rules the heart. But in the end the heart is the boss.
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