Quote

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

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John Gimlette
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: January 1
Author
Journalist
Always
Playing
Televisions
Television
Channels
Means
Boston
Three
Surprised
Everything
Bars
Mean
Eventually
Different
Noise
Going
Constantly

More quotes by John Gimlette

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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
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I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.
John Gimlette
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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.
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I don't therefore know how to write for the big papers. It must be kids - students - and retired people. And the reality is they are overwhelmed with people sending in their holiday stories and bits and pieces and so on.
John Gimlette
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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
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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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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
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American travel writing is very healthy. I'm always flicking through the reviews and I see plenty of travel writing - and an impressive line up and continual demand.
John Gimlette
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A lot of books are sold and given away as presents. But who actually reads and enjoy reading?
John Gimlette
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In both places [Paraguay and Newfoundland] people rise despite everything - both are pretty tough environments.
John Gimlette
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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
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I have a nice little idea from some people I met there who are now in their seventies, and I want to tell their story about the revolution through the eyes of musicians, in fact. The '59 Revolution. And what has happened to them since. It's very much a Cuban story. They haven't fared too well.
John Gimlette
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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
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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
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India, to some extent, courses through my blood. My father was brought up there, and my grandfather served there, and so on. We have a very strong family affinity for the place.
John Gimlette
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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
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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
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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
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I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.
John Gimlette
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I have to be careful not to visit one place right after the other and write one book after the other. Because I fear writing the same book all over again. That's why I am taking a break and doing something different this time.
John Gimlette