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If there is any human tragedy, there is only one, and it occurs when we forget who we are and remain silent while a stranger takes up residence inside our skin.

James Lee Burke

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James Lee Burke
Age: 87
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
Remain
Silent
Inside
Residence
Takes
Occurs
Forget
Skin
Human
Stranger
Humans
Skins
Tragedy

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There is no higher form of artistic expression then film
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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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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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Success, like fashion, is a fickle companion and can leave one in the wink of an eye.
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Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
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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.
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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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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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God bless the Reference Librarians
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..why is it that in problematic situations almost everyone resorts to axioms and societal remedies that in actuality almost nobody believes in?...ask yourself, have you ever known anyone whose marriage was saved by a marriage counselor, whose drinking was cured by a psychiatrist, whose son was kept out of reform school by a social worker?
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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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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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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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Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.
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And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.
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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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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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Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
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We gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.
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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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