Quote

What I really like to do is to sit quietly and write. All that other stuff is a problem. Publication to reception to negotiation to... everything, it's a problem. And I like to sit outside for long periods of time and just be in the tranquility of nature. That's what I like.

Mark Helprin

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Mark Helprin
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: June 28
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
New York City
New York
Long
Periods
Really
Outside
Time
Write
Like
Stuff
Reception
Nature
Publication
Problem
Negotiation
Everything
Tranquility
Writing
Quietly

More quotes by Mark Helprin

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Perhaps he was a fool, but he thought that if a work were truly great you would only have to read it once and you would be stolen from yourself, desperately moved, changed forever.
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Whatever I do I've always done not because I want something but to compensate for a loss, to bring about a balance, to create amends, to make things right.
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World War II is the war that made our world. There's no question about that. The history of all the years in which I will spend my life, every single one, that is the seminal event of the history that we will experience.
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Words were all he knew they possessed and overwhelmed him, as if they were a thousand white cats with whom he shared a one-room apartment.
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We launch our souls from the cannons of art and discipline, and on any one night, hovering over the chimney tops of Europe, halfway to the stars, there are armies of brightly spinning spirits that have risen like fireworks, tethered to the souls of those men and women who, by reflection, mortification, and devotion, effortlessly outdazzle kings.
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If it weren't for music, I would think that love is mortal.
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I believe that Israel is very likely not to survive, it's not going to last forever, and now there's nothing that someone like me can do about it, in that it's a threat of nuclear or biological or chemical attack.
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When you die, you know, you hear the insistent pounding that defines all things, whether of matter or energy, since there is nothing in the universe, really, but proportion.
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Because there were all kinds of hell - some were black and dirty, and some were silvery and high.
Mark Helprin
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Heavy blizzards start as a gentle and persistent snow.
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The horse could not do without Manhattan. It drew him like a magnet, like a vacuum, like oats, or a mare, or an open, never-ending, tree-lined road.
Mark Helprin
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One is attracted to beauty. Beauty is the coordination of things, in such a way, that it is what attracts you. It's almost self-defining.
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I've always been terribly uninterested in criticism. And one of the reasons, I just thought recently, is that you know there are various schools of criticism that will compete, and one will supercede the other.
Mark Helprin
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When faced with something I fear, I tend to eat spaghetti.
Mark Helprin
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I saw how greatly he suffered the requirement of being clever. It separated him from his soul, and it didn't get him anything other than a living
Mark Helprin
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To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been.
Mark Helprin
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They gave themselves up to the stars the way swimmers can surrender to the waves, and the stars took them without resistance.
Mark Helprin
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For what can be imagined more beautiful than the sight of a perfectly just city rejoicing in justice alone.
Mark Helprin
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I have to confess that I have so rarely experienced triumph that I cannot claim to know it well enough to judge, but it seems to be at best a momentary joy followed instantly by sadness, and, then, of necessity, by wariness.
Mark Helprin
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And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.
Mark Helprin