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The imagination is always the best torturer.

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
Always
Torturer
Imagination
Best

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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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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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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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First with the head, then with the heart.
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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.
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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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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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It's not what a man does, it's what a man is that counts!
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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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If I were king of the world there wouldn't be boat people, there would only be people coming in boats. I would mix us all up so that we were all exactly one shade of each other.
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I tell myself lies and soon I believe them.
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If you don't know where you are going, then how will you get there? VISUALISE! Make pictures in your mind. See the desination. Imagine your arrival. Dream in perfect detail. See yourself the way you want to be when you arrive. See yourself arriving. Make yourself a road map and study it every day until you know the way and the destination by heart.
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. . . besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child.
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I am essentially an entertainer and a storyteller.
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People say I don't write books, I make Christmas presents.
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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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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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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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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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