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Vincent van Gogh's mother painted all of his best things. The famous mailed decapitated ear was a figment of the public relations firm engaged by Van Gogh's dealer.

Roy Blount, Jr.

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Roy Blount, Jr.
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 4
Musician
Writer
Indianapolis
Indiana
Things
Engaged
Figment
Firm
Figments
Famous
Gogh
Relation
Vincent
Ears
Dealer
Public
Vans
Mother
Painted
Decapitated
Best
Relations
Mailed

More quotes by Roy Blount, Jr.

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English is an outrageous tangle of those derivations and other multifarious linguistic influences, from Yiddish to Shoshone, which has grown up around a gnarly core of chewy, clangorous yawps derived from ancestors who painted themselves blue to frighten their enemies.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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Obama's got a great sense of humor, but mainly he has a great thinking presence, which is uncommon. It's hard to imagine being able to do, think over answers and deliver them on television. If I were president I would constantly be spluttering.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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Contemporary American children, if they are old enough to grasp the concept of Santa Claus by Thanksgiving, are able to see through it by December 15th.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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When I weed, I like to get off into my own head. For one thing, my wife plants and I have trouble telling which plants are weeds and which are my favorite plants. So I tend to hop around and grab the weeds that I know are weeds. So I don't weed all that linearly. I tend to weed haphazardly.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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An author is a person who can never take innocent pleasure in visiting a bookstore again.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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I just think lots of words have physicality. How about the word 'wobble?' You think that's arbitrary? When you say the word 'wince,' you wince. How about that?
Roy Blount, Jr.
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When I was a little kid, of course, I was brown all summer. That's because I was free as a bird- nothing to do but catch bugs all day.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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To me, letters have always been a robust medium of sublimation. I don't remember what I was like before I learned my ABC's, but for as long as I can remember I have made them with my fingers and felt them in my bones.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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A picture's worth a thousand words? A library card's worth millions.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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Cats have intercepted my footsteps at the ankle for so long that my gait, both at home and on tour, has been compared to that of a man wading through low surf.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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Think about scary movies: There's a fine line between horror and humor.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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I heard on public radio recently, there's a thing called Weed Dating. Singles get together in a garden and weed and then they take turns, they keep matching up with other people. Two people will weed down one row and switch over with two other people. It's in Vermont. I don't think I'd be very good at Weed Dating.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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It was easy to make fun of Bush, but it was sort of like shooting fish in a barrel and it didn't really feel all that good because it was so easy to do. I would much rather live under a thoughtful president. Even if it makes it harder to be funny about politics, it makes it more interesting to be funny about politics.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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Certainly people have said a lot of deeply unfortunate and stupid things in Southern accents, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the accent itself.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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Being president of too many well-meaning organizations put my father into an early grave. The lesson in this was not lost on me.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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I've never thought it was necessary to make fun of people - you can find fun in people without necessarily mocking them.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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I do some eccentric dancing.
Roy Blount, Jr.
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I am open to the accusation that I see compost as an end it itself. But we do grow some real red damn tomatoes such as you can't get in the stores. And potatoes, beans, lettuce, collards, onions, squash, cauliflower, eggplant, carrots, peppers. Dirt in you own backyard, producing things you eat. Makes you wonder.
Roy Blount, Jr.