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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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James Lee Burke
Age: 87
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
Something
Time
Either
Life
Choices
Dies
Write
Two
Writing
Going

More quotes by James Lee Burke

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One day you'll have a quiet heart.
James Lee Burke
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Don't let anyone tell you that age purchases your freedom from fear of death.
James Lee Burke
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Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
James Lee Burke
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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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Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
James Lee Burke
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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.
James Lee Burke
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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.
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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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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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.
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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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.
James Lee Burke
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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.
James Lee Burke
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There is no higher form of artistic expression then film
James Lee Burke
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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.
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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I feel blessed in the knowledge that I probably belong to the last generation that will remember what we call traditional America.
James Lee Burke
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There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.
James Lee Burke
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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?
James Lee Burke
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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.
James Lee Burke