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Without work, so much of one's identity just evaporates.

Joshua Ferris

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Joshua Ferris
Age: 49
Born: 1974
Born: November 8
Author
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Danville
Illinois
Evaporates
Identity
Without
Work
Much

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A dentist is only half the doctor he claims to be.
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Every time you hear someone read your book and liked your book, you're never sure whether that's going to follow with a similar remark from someone else. Perhaps I have low expectations, but whenever I hear someone say, 'I liked your book,' I don't know if it's going to happen again.
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I think it's a very bad idea for someone to start writing for a readership.
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We had the great good fortune and shortcomings of character that marked every generation that had never seen war.
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Between the time I first started working in advertising in 1998 and now, the word brand has replaced identity. We are no longer individuals so much as we are brands. We're individual brands. Individuals are basically left to define their individuality by staying off the internet, which in and of itself can be a brand, the opting-out brand.
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I come from a very illustrious line of divorces. We love to get divorced in my family. My mother and father have been married four times each - eight ceremonies with the best of intentions.
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I have never stopped considering not becoming a writer.
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After I left college I thought, very naively, that either you became someone interesting - an artist - or you went into academia. If you ended up in an office you were dull and lacking. And I ended up in an office.
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Everyone desires relationships and community. Most people want to belong to a cohesive, like-minded group. It staves off loneliness. It promotes identity. These are natural and very human instincts.
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I wake up every day in order to do something that's quixotic, and not necessarily called for in the world, but I do it because there's extraordinary meaning for me behind the effort.
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The office is a romantic enabler because you're always around the person you have a crush on. There's no escape from, and maybe no desire to escape from, those pressure-cooker conditions. And there's an automatic series of things you have to talk about all the time.
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My first job is to write a book that I believe is compelling and deserves the long sustained attention that any novel requires, and to worry about the commerce only late in the game.
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Humor is a very big part of life, and if you exclude humor from your book, you're not capturing a very important part of human experience.
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It is forgivable to say nothing out of ignorance it's inexcusable to remain silent once awareness dawns.
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You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It’s the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I’m alienated from society.
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To conform is to lose your soul
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We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen.
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If you can get by with quotes from The Godfather and nothing you say matters, that's pretty bleak, don't you think? Don't we want what we say to matter?
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One thing that I discovered about myself is I really don't like traveling. I feel like it's a terrible personal failing, but I was so satisfied to arrive at the conclusion.
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It is really irritating to work with irritating people
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