Quote

The myriad past, it enters us and disappears. Except that within it, somewhere, like diamonds, exist the fragments that refuse to be consumed. Sifting through, if one dares, and collecting them, one discovers the true design.

James Salter

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James Salter
Aircraft Pilot
Film Director
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Except
Collecting
Exist
Fragments
Sifting
Design
Consumed
Myriad
Within
Diamond
Dares
True
Disappear
Discovers
Past
Dare
Diamonds
Like
Refuse
Enters
Somewhere
Disappears

More quotes by James Salter

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One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish.
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ONE OF THE LAST GREAT REALIZATIONS is that life will not be what you dreamed.
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Dialogue's a method of revelation, of course. A few words of dialogue can reveal worlds about a character.
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You write for glory. You play for glory. There's an ambition to excel, isn't there, to be a star? To score more, to do more, even when it's a team sport. So I think striving for glory is a natural subject for a writer. Seeking fame.
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He liked to read with the silence and the golden color of the whiskey as his companions. He liked food, people, talk, but reading was an inexhaustible pleasure. What the joys of music were to others, words on a page were to him.
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I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.
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Not necessarily narrow so much as impatient, intense.
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The dreams are the skeleton of all reality.
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I always knew writing a novel was a great thing.
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You would have to be very optimistic to think that any of your books will be among the books that survive in the very long run. I think if a writer is lucky enough to still have a few books around after he's gone, a few that are still being read, then he's accomplished quite a lot.
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A film writer is very much like a party girl. While you're good-looking and still unlined, the possibilities seem endless. But your appeal doesn't last long and you're quickly discarded.
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The normal economic system works itself.
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Women fall in love when they get to know you. Men are just the opposite. When they finally know you they're ready to leave
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If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.
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In a certain sense, a writer is an exile, an outsider, always reporting on things, and it is part of his life to keep on the move. Travel is natural.
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Events need their invitation, dissolutions their start.
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Then it was intoxicating. The smooth takeoff, and the free feeling of having the world drop away. Soon after leaving the ground, they were crossing patches of stratus that lay in the valleys as heavy and white as glaciers. North for the first time. It was still an adventure, as exciting as love, as frightening.
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You’re so American. You believe everything is possible, everything will come. I know differently.
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Your parents are the parents you know best. Your brother and sister, if you have them, are the brother and sister you know best. They may not be the ones you like the best. They may not be the most interesting, but they are the closest and probably the clearest to you.
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I write down portions, maybe fragments, and perhaps an imperfect view of what Im hoping to write. Out of that, I keep trying to find exactly what I want.
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