“Why the fiction of ideas should be so neglected is beyond me. I can’t explain it, except in terms of intellectual snobbery. … If I’d found out that Norman Mailer liked me, I’d have killed myself. I think he was too hung up. I’m glad Kurt Vonnegut didn’t like me either. He had problems, terrible problems. He couldn’t see the world the way I see it. I suppose I’m too much Pollyanna, he was too much Cassandra. Actually I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna and half Cassandra, warning of the future and perhaps living too much in the past — a combination of both. But I don’t think I’m too overoptimistic.”

— Ray Bradbury

The Paris Review interview (2010)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Ray Bradbury 401

American writer 1920–2012

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

“The past, he said. The past is too much with me. And the past has made me useless. I have too much to remember—so much to remember that it becomes more important than the things there are to do. I’m living in the past and that is no way to live.”

Clifford D. Simak book City

Source: City (1952), Chapter 7, “Aesop” (p. 201)

“Now, I think that I should have known that he was magic all along. I did know it — but I should have guessed that it would be too much to ask to grow old with and see our children grow up together. So now, he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Quoted from article written by Jacqueline Kennedy for Look Magazine (17 November 1964) JFK memorial issue.

“The only thing to think over was Me, of course. And the real problem about Me was, What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to be nothing but God? I had tried the God business and found it too limited. It was a job for a simple-minded egomaniac. There had to be something else for me to do—something more meaningful, more expressive of my true self. I’m convinced of it! That is my problem, and that is the question I ask of you: What am I to do with myself?”

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 7 (p. 53)

“I began to get up at two or three in the morning and work for twelve to fifteen hours a day. I’d get so emotionally drained by the writing, that I’d feel sick at the end of the day. My family became worried about me and they invited a friend, who was a writer in Los Angeles, to see me. He told me that he’d heard how serious I was about my writing, so he was willing to take a little time off of his busy schedule to glance at my work. I gave him the latest version of my manuscript. He took it home and came back to see me the following week. His face was long. He told me that he was sorry to say this but, as a family friend, he had the obligation to be truthful, so he’d tell me straight out that I had no talent. The book was terrible. And also, I was trying to write way beyond my mental capabilities.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

“I do what seems best—I live, I let live; so far I’ve done well. I don’t see why I should act like a predator, simply because I’m in a predatory society. I’m a human being, I’m myself—if I make my life something vicious, who’ll give me another if, too late, I regret what I’ve done?”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The Eye and the Lightning, in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magazine_of_Fantasy_%26_Science_Fiction, December 1958, p. 18
Short fiction

“It was ridiculous—he was soaking. I had to get a towel and offer him clothes that he wouldn’t take. I knew immediately that I’d like him; he just had one of those faces. I could see what he’d been like as a boy, probably always fenced off in the electronic penitentiary of a too-fast mind.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

“I never can beat Roger, he’s too much for me… but the Senior Tour, I will beat him then! He’s the best of history and I’m very lucky to play the best player of the world.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

David Ferrer, after losing to Federer in the 2014 Cincinnati Masters final. http://www.thesportreview.com/tsr/2014/08/cincinnati-masters-fearsome-federer-cuts-down-ferrer-again-for-80th-title/

“He had a nice smile. Seeing it, I felt like I’d won a prize, because he was so sparing with them.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

“So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Changes
Song lyrics, Hunky Dory (1971)
Context: Still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild.
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet.
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test.

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