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There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.

James Lee Burke

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James Lee Burke
Age: 87
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
Make
Like
Inventory
Rejecting
Rejects
Rejected
Rejection
Nothing

More quotes by James Lee Burke

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Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.
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I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.
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I feel blessed in the knowledge that I probably belong to the last generation that will remember what we call traditional America.
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I think the crime novel has replaced the sociological novel of the 1930s. I think the progenitor of that tradition is James M. Cain, who in my view is the most neglected writer in American literature.
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...and I wonder if there is any way to adequately describe the folly that causes us to undo all the great gifts of both Earth and Heaven.
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You do it a day at a time. You write as well as you can, you put it in the mail, you leave it under submission, you never leave it at home.
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If you put somebody on a crack pipe and give them a 9 mm Baretta, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen next.
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Age is a peculiar kind of thief. It slips up on you and steps inside your skin and is so quiet and methodical in its work that you never realize it has stolen your youth until you look into the mirror one morning and see a man you don't recognize.
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You have two choices in life. You either die or do something with your time. You're going to be doing something - why not write?
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Neither our own passing nor the passing of an era is a tragedy, no matter how much we would like to think it is.
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And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.
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We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.
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Hackberry Holland's greatest fear was his fellow man's propensity to act collectively, in militaristic lockstep, under the banner of God and country. Mobs did not rush across town to do good deeds, and in Hackberry's view, there was no more odious taint on any social or political endeavor than universal approval.
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That's one of the great advantages of age. You can say, I don't want to, I don't care, you can throw temper tantrums, and nobody minds.
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What's the worst thing about getting old? Getting old.
James Lee Burke
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The real gladiators of the world are so humble in their origins and unremarkable in appearance that when we stand next to them in a grocery-store line, we never guess how brightly their souls can burn in the dark.
James Lee Burke
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But perhaps age has taught me that the earth is still new, molten at the core and still forming, that black leaves in the winter forest will crawl with life in the spring, that our story is ongoing and it is indeed a crime to allow the heart's energies to dissipate with the fading of light on the horizon.
James Lee Burke
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Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you're not aware of your loss until it'd irreversible.
James Lee Burke
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Success, like fashion, is a fickle companion and can leave one in the wink of an eye.
James Lee Burke
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It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.
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