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
Like
Refuse
Enters
Somewhere
Disappears
Except
Collecting
Exist
Fragments
Sifting
Design
Consumed
Myriad
Within
Diamond
Dares
True
Disappear
Discovers
Past
Dare
Diamonds

More quotes by James Salter

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The normal economic system works itself.
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Not necessarily narrow so much as impatient, intense.
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Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.
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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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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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Amplitude is a powerful quality in fiction. It results in involvement, in sympathy with the characters. After a while, a reader can't avoid being involved with a book, caring about it, even if it's not a particularly good book. You're in it, and you're committed to it.
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My idea of writing is of unflinching and continual effort, somehow trying to find the right words until you reach a point where you can make no further progress and you either have something or you don’t.
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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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You can write about other people and their ideas and life without having lived it, but even your perception of that is going to be colored by what you know and what you experience. And this is undeniable.
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I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.
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They are travelling cheaply, with that touch of indolence and occasional luxury that comes only from having real resources. They live in Levis and sunlight. Sometimes they brush their teeth in streams.
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I'd given up everything to be a writer, and if I didn't then go on to do that - to write - then I didn't know what would happen to me.
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Normally, what you’re envious of is a book, not a writer: standards, ideas, levels … almost nonexistent things.
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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
James Salter
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I always knew writing a novel was a great thing.
James Salter
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Lots of scripts are written and not made, even scripts that people want to make.
James Salter
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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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You are perfectly entitled to invent your life and to claim that it's true.
James Salter
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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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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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