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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.

James Lee Burke

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James Lee Burke
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
Make
Gift
Good
Comes
World
Artist
Else
Place
Reason
Better
Every
Somewhere

More quotes by James Lee Burke

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We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.
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Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
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We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and we've been in wars ever since. We're not a pacific people.
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The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision.
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Is there a design in the events of our lives? Or do things just happen, much like a junk yard falling down a staircase? If it's the latter, how do you deal with it?
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I believe the causes that create them [serial killers] are theological in nature, rather than societal. I believe they make a conscious choice to erase God's thumbprint from their souls.
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Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.
James Lee Burke
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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?
James Lee Burke
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Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.
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.
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To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable.
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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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There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.
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What's the worst thing about getting old? Getting old.
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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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We gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.
James Lee Burke
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Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
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.
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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.
James Lee Burke
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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.
James Lee Burke