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Paraguay has had a U.S. supermarket boss as its ambassador for a while. He did the job well. He was there because he wanted to be there. Rather than the British diplomat who didn't want to be there.
John Gimlette
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John Gimlette
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: January 1
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Well
Ambassadors
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Paraguay
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More quotes by John Gimlette
I slightly feel, having written Paraguay and Newfoundland - and both of them have developed eccentricities through isolation - I am quite relieved to be back in France and Germany, and I want people to enjoy these books for the writing and not because they feel they can laugh - some will laugh - at these eccentric places, that's not what I intend.
John Gimlette
We don't really listen to what the other person is saying. We have gotten used to information being in such a concentrated form all the time, and so continuously, that conversation somehow seems inadequate for a lot of people, and therefore they can't join in it. You notice how many people can't argue anymore - without getting very upset.
John Gimlette
My parents probably feel closer to the U.S. They feel America came to our rescue in the war and all that sort of thing. And for their generation the war still goes on. We still save food and little bits get scraped off and boiled out the next day.
John Gimlette
I am sure you have met diplomats they probably travel far less than you do. Okay, they get to know a place very intensely - sometimes only the capitol city.
John Gimlette
People my age and younger do think much more towards Europe. We have to fill the gap sometime - we can't think we are an empire any longer after all.
John Gimlette
In both places [Paraguay and Newfoundland] people rise despite everything - both are pretty tough environments.
John Gimlette
I am always surprised when people do get upset. Perhaps its just the nutty people who write to newspapers who get upset.
John Gimlette
Originally I wanted to be a diplomat, and by attrition I started giving up that idea.
John Gimlette
I wonder if this reason is partly geographical, that talk radio is so much more successful in North America than in Britain? People who are very remote - I'm thinking of Newfoundland - feel very connected though the radio.
John Gimlette
The noise that we can expect in the future will only increase and we'll be wishing for rural Portugal or something like that.
John Gimlette
A lot of books are sold and given away as presents. But who actually reads and enjoy reading?
John Gimlette
I was talking to my publisher in Britain and was told here we are - we are sixty million people and we reckon only four hundred thousand people in Britain really read.
John Gimlette
I don't want to pay good money to hear ordinary people's lunatic views. Most of the people who phone in are [lunatics] - certainly in Britain.
John Gimlette
There are no young people who know how to debate, who know how to vote, and who know how to persuade people to vote. And you have seen this in Paraguay and they are reaping the harvest now of fifty years of dictatorship.
John Gimlette
I think one should express opinions and these books are relatively opinionated. They would be a bit dry without it.
John Gimlette
Benedict Allen gives you the impression that he hasn't done any research at all, and I am sure he has. And when he is off doing his ice dogs and that sort of thing - and therefore its not only an exploration of the place but also his imagination in a sense. It's very successful as technique.
John Gimlette
I have real fears for Cuba based on the South American experience. Where you have had such a stern regime, as Fidel's [Castro], there is no culture of politics.
John Gimlette
Paraguayans have no Italian blood and are half Guarani [Indian] blood. And the Chileans call themselves the English of South America, which actually couldn't be further from the truth.
John Gimlette
I am always surprised to go into a bar in Boston and three televisions are playing different channels, all at once. We are constantly surprised by this noise and television. It means that's what we are going to get, because we always get everything eventually.
John Gimlette
I have dipped into Ian McEwan and so on. I tend not to stick with one writer. But I dip in here and there.
John Gimlette