I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.
Mavis Gallant
Related I was very fortunate in my gene mix. The gambling instincts I inherited from my father were matched ... T. BOONE PICKENS I worked hard and made my own way, just as my father had. And just, I'm sure, as he hoped I would. I... SIGOURNEY WEAVER When I was living in the projects, I had a mop stick for my horse. I wanted to be Gene Autry or Roy ... AARON NEVILLE My father died when I was 7. I was his favorite child, and he was my beloved father. I brought him a... P. L. TRAVERS I had been a fan of Gene Wilder's for many years, but the first time I saw him in person, my hea... GILDA RADNER I became a soldier, not because I had a military vocation initially, but because it was the only way... HUGO CHAVEZ It was always a dream of mine. When I was in high school I used to write poems for my friends. And t... CYNTHIA VELENO It was always a dream of mine. When I was in high school I used to write poems for my friends. And t... CYNTHIA VELENO I had a very difficult and complex relationship with my father, ... It was only when I was 15 years ... RAMON MAGSAYSAY I was eight years old, and it was a gift from my parents [Gene and Ann Henderson]. BOB HENDERSON My father was murdered when I was two. Duane, even though he was only a year and 18 days my elder, h... GREGG ALLMAN I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober SAMUEL JOHNSON Unsubscribe from should-a, would-a, could-a MICHAEL H. DANSBURY I realized I was afraid of living without him. How is it you have the right to destroy my life, I wa... JOJO MOYES I was born in 1976. I grew up in a traditional Mexican family. As a child, I had a pretty normal lif... EMILIANO SALINAS I had nothing to fear from my father. Except his disappointment. Which was no small thing. BARBARA DELINSKY My father earned every penny he had, and I would have loved to have bought him a Rolls-Royce because... BRUCE FORSYTH Writing was a way to get away from my life as a programmer, so I wanted to write about other things,... ELLEN ULLMAN For a moment, I was captivated as I studied them side by side. My mother: the perfect picture of gua... RICHELLE MEAD I thought my life was mapped out. Research, living in the forest, teaching and writing. But in '... JANE GOODALL I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We... MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. When I was younger, I was a bit of a feisty fighter type of guy. That's something my father told... NATE ROBINSON I believe I inherited my sense of music from my father. My father was an ear piano player; he could ... RICHIE HAVENS I had a dream my life would be So different from this hell I'm living So different now from... HERBERT KRETZMER I should have been deliriously happy. I had my dream come true. I'm a best-selling author. So wh... TAWNI O'DELL I got a telegraph from my mother who said that my step-father had had a heart attack, come home and ... VIDAL SASSOON I never had plastic surgery. I had a nose procedure done because I had to. I had no cartilage in my ... TAMAR BRAXTON I played from the time I was seven years old. My father was my first baseman coach. I had opportunit... TODD ENGLISH It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn't know it. Had I known, had I cherished this gi... ORHAN PAMUK My father, we bumped heads when I was younger, much younger... I had different ideas that I shared w... ZIGGY MARLEY And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who ha... ARTHUR GOLDEN and another claimed it was inherited through a parent who was a carrier of the defective gene. I had... JODI PICOULT I had a critical father. I'm more like my father. He was a sales rep for pharmaceutical companie... MARTHA STEWART My mum left my dad when I was six months old, so I don't know him at all. I had no male figures ... CATHERINE TATE What made me this way was watching my father go through bad employment experiences. When I was 17, a... TOM GOLISANO I had a very normal, very typical American childhood. My father worked for the government at the Pen... JEFF KINNEY I had a little insight into life that most kids probably didn't have. My mother was a schoolteac... CHARLES KURALT I almost drowned in a hot tub at a writing workshop once after I had some drinks without accounting ... TIM PRATT A ball had passed between my body and the right arm which supported him, cutting through the sleeve ... CLARA BARTON The summer sun continued to rise in the sky and propel shocks of heat down on the city and the heavy... HUBERT SELBY JR. I was writing short films and I was going through this really, really, really terrible end of a rela... EVAN GLODELL Sometimes, as Eve was born from one of Adam’s ribs, a woman was born during my sleep from a crampe... MARCEL PROUST I went through a lot of bullying early on. Girls made my life a living hell. We had come to America ... NICKI MINAJ 'Master Harold' is about me as a little boy, and my father, who was an alcoholic. There'... ATHOL FUGARD In my life, I'm just looking for that life of integrity that my father had. I have a good heart;... JOHNATHON SCHAECH When had I tamed myself? It had been a lengthy apprenticeship, begun when I was as young as ten, and... DOMENICO STARNONE From very early on, I had always wanted to be a stand-up comedian. It was my passion; it was my goal... MIKE BINDER My father was an aspiring country singer and songwriter. He just didn't get that off that ground... RONNIE DUNN My father had to go back to Iran to take care of his father when I was 13 and was detained for six y... DARA KHOSROWSHAHI I don't wear much make-up in my non-working life, though I love to dress up and put on a face fo... DIANA QUICK Freud had a gene for inefficiency, and I think I have a gene for efficiency. ALBERT ELLIS Some, like Mother Teresa, are born with a gene to help the poor, and some are born with a gene to wr... FRANK MCCOURT My father was very energetic; my mother was very energetic. He lived to a very old age, and so did m... DONALD TRUMP My son John was just under a year old when I collapsed with a life-threatening kidney disease. The s... MARY MANIN MORRISSEY It was hard for my father to read; it took him a long time, but he had tremendous retention and trem... SAMUEL GOLDWYN, JR. But once, in his anger, Aidan had asked me whether I thought I had wasted my life, and I had told hi... JOHN BOYNE My father has been extremely supportive of my music. I would classify him as my hero. If it was not ... J. LOREN WINCE I would have been willing to do anything for my father. I would have moved in with my father to look... BRUCE PALTROW Through acting and film, I felt that my life had a sense to it. I felt I had a mission. CECILIA ROTH It wasn't until I started to read short stories - by people like Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Joh... CAROL WINDLEY As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off... JONATHAN COE My father was a minister. I had to make up for the lack of sin. LONDO MOLARI My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father ca... JHUMPA LAHIRI A ball had passed between my body and the right arm which supported him, cutting through the sleeve ... CLARA BARTON My father would leave home for seven or eight months of the year trying to pursue his hockey career.... BERNICE CARNEGIE If I had to do my life over, I would change every single thing I have done. RAY DAVIES My childhood in Corfu shaped my life. If I had the craft of Merlin, I would give every child the gif... GERALD DURRELL You know, my love, you are not responsible for my happiness, or even my health. I've had a choice ev... CHRISTINE FEEHAN A lot of teenagers write to me and say "I want to write a book. I want to get published." And those ... MAUREEN JOHNSON As I thought I had travelled through life long enough alone and thought it was about time to take a ... CALAMITY JANE I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed... RANSOM RIGGS Broadway was without doubt the hardest I ever worked in my life and the highest highs I've ever had ... BRAD GARRETT My early life had a lot to do with my origins as a writer, but I didn't get into doing any writi... CHRIS CRUTCHER If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I was 25 when I first started playing for Gloucestershire, because my father had insisted I got a pr... DAVID SHEPHERD It was a gift. What did I do with it? Life didn't accumulate as I'd once imagined. I graduated from ... EMMA CLINE I began using pseudonyms early in my career, when I was being paid a quarter a cent a word for my wo... EVAN HUNTER Highgate. I was not dispirited now. I was not afraid of the shabby coat, and had no yearnings after ... CHARLES DICKENS I had two surgeries after the season was over. I had a nagging knee injury. I tore the sheath away f... ANDREA VALADEZ I had a mixture, my father was a career army man and my mother was a writer. BILL GRIFFITH My whole life I've had the fear that I was going to be abandoned. HALLE BERRY Only fools wait, and only tools bait. CRE Always, through my whole life, I've had a thirst for knowledge. EMMITT SMITH I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed... RANSOM RIGGS I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen. RANSOM RIGGS I had a tough time getting help for myself because I was afraid to leave my children who needed me. BRENDA JOHNSON I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, ... J. K. ROWLING My grandfather had been a newspaper reporter, as was my uncle. They were pretty good writers and so ... GENE HACKMAN I'm a father myself for the first time in my life, and I had very very loving parents. DAVID KEITH I'm sure that my father becoming seriously ill when I was 14 had a lot to do with my going from ... RAFE SPALL I thought a lot about my attitude toward the world, toward fear and violence, and that I had somethi... ROBERT STONE I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn't until I... PAUL AUSTER I've never had a particularly sweet tooth. In fact, during the war, I used to swap my sweet rati... JUNE WHITFIELD For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook... NICHOLAS SPARKS One time, two years ago, I took a draught of morphia, meaning to end my life. My mother found me bef... SARAH WATERS My dream was to go to Nashville. I had my sights set on my dream. I used to have an '89 Toyota F... JOSH TURNER When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." M... KIRAN DESAI I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and... ERNEST GAINES I learned there were lots of realities in the world. HARUKI MURAKAMI I had my life Monday through Friday in school, and then I had my 'real life,' which was my a... GILLIAN JACOBS
More Mavis Gallant
It happened that at the late age of twenty-seven I had run away from home. High time, you might say;... MAVIS GALLANT If you listen at doors, you hear what you deserve. MAVIS GALLANT She had the loaded handbag of someone who camps out and seldom goes home, or who imagines life must ... MAVIS GALLANT My mother has lived every day of her life as if it were preparation for some kind of crisis. MAVIS GALLANT [My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the b... MAVIS GALLANT If your life isn't exactly the way you want it to be by the time you are forty-five," said Walter's ... MAVIS GALLANT She could have lived in comfort, but I doubt if it occurred to her to try. MAVIS GALLANT My father, who has become too deaf to listen to reason, bores us with news of the weather. We have l... MAVIS GALLANT Converts have it soft," said Mary. "They come to it late, without ever having had the Devil under th... MAVIS GALLANT I was born technically in D.C., and then my family moved to the Columbia area when I was in elementa... GALLANT When I was in New York, the whole vibe was really just not matching with me. I was kind of super dep... GALLANT I knew that the artists that I loved the most had something about them that was very unfiltered and ... GALLANT I remember keeping a lot of journals and diaries and trying to form a complete thought just based of... GALLANT My live show is almost like a meditation. An emotional apex - that's what I want it to feel like... GALLANT People had an idea of what R&B artists or pop artists usually say, which was like, 'Talk abo... GALLANT It's been an amazing life. It's really just been the most magical thing for me - and I have ... MAVIS STAPLES My high-school a cappella teacher would embarrass me in front of the choir. 'Mavis, you're i... MAVIS STAPLES We've had a great change. Dr King saw to that. I was so grateful to see the 'colored only... MAVIS STAPLES This little girl, unfortunately, didn't just fall through the cracks. She fell into the abyss. MAVIS TAILLIEU I don't know which way I'm going. My next CD might be country, might be Dylan, might be Mick... MAVIS STAPLES The kids today have these fresh faces. It's like they're on pins and needles, waiting to see... MAVIS STAPLES What we've heard with the whole transfer process was that it was pushed through very quickly . . . t... MAVIS TAILLIEU Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way MAVIS MAZHURA I would like to bring to the attention of all consumers that the current load shedding due to supply... MAVIS CHIDZONGA We don't buy anything with chemicals in here at all because the taste is different, ... No chemicals... DAVID GALLANT He (Malhotra) put the puck on the net and we had traffic in front of the net. It was one of the few ... GERARD GALLANT To stop those three guys is a feat in itself. GERARD GALLANT Bryan?s moved on. It was a tough situation for the guy, but he?s put it behind him and kept himself ... GERARD GALLANT I think we made a couple of dumb plays that cost us. We were within a goal twice and we gambled a co... GERARD GALLANT I expect zero percent growth out of Allstate but it's never really been a growth company. They are l... CLIFF GALLANT We showed our character coming back. I wish we'd won tonight to make it seven games, but we got the ... GERARD GALLANT It?s probably a day-to-day thing, but it?s not good, I know that. He can put some pressure on it, bu... GERARD GALLANT I think (NHL officials) are going to look at it. I think he is going to be out for a while. GERARD GALLANT Coming in here and winning the sixth game is tough. We have had a bad record here this season. GERARD GALLANT It?s great to see him get some scoring chances and make the most of him. He?s played hard, and you l... GERARD GALLANT Marc [Denis] was huge tonight. He played a great game and made some great saves. His last two games ... GERARD GALLANT He had a real tough year at the start with all of the injuries he had. I think he's rounding into to... GERARD GALLANT It's coming around. We have a pretty good team here when we're healthy. GERARD GALLANT It does seem very strange. Typically if your spouse takes all your money, you'd need to keep on work... CLIFF GALLANT We played awful hockey in the second and third periods. We were fortunate it was only 3-1. GERARD GALLANT The rationale behind the deal hasn't been laid out for investors. As an outsider, I don't quite see ... CLIFFORD GALLANT The problem with seafood markets is they buy only once or twice a week, ... I buy fish and scallops ... DAVID GALLANT He has been solid. He has a knack for scoring and has a quick shot. He is a smart player and doesn't... GERARD GALLANT I like how it?s gone. The two of them, Pascal and Marc, are feeding off each other, and it keeps bot... GERARD GALLANT The life of a vampire begins with the first bite. A.J. GALLANT I cut my two cheeseburgers and pie a la mode to one cheeseburger. PAUL GALLANT This is the kind of season Nashville is having this year. They find a way to scratch out wins. We se... GERARD GALLANT The more you wear them, the better they look. When you get a pair that you've worn in, they become t... MAGGIE GALLANT We feed a lot of people, DAVID GALLANT [He's quick to point out that he never really stopped digging entirely.] The thing about digging cla... DAVID GALLANT It got into my blood, ... It got into my system. DAVID GALLANT Diane and I used to go ourselves and go to restaurants and knock on doors to get accounts, DAVID GALLANT I was baby-sat on the beach, DAVID GALLANT For the remainder of the year we expect further rate softening in this segment. CLIFFORD GALLANT Our school buses now will be less polluting. We'll be able to have them heated in the mornings, less... FRANK GALLANT We are looking to make another run, but it will depend on how our younger guys mature as the season ... FRANK GALLANT They gave us about 1,000 bottles of water. FRANK GALLANT They're not all built the same. They need to be sure they're not buying a unit that's laden with pro... JD GALLANT There's no rebate. You've got to negotiate from the manufacturer's suggested retail price. You've go... JD GALLANT This is a good chance for people to deal both in the discount up front and in the financing. JD GALLANT It?s a balancing act in our society. We?re always go, go, go, and it?s important to have balance in ... KATHY GALLANT I was used to teens who had everything they needed. KATHY GALLANT We walked into the center and it was just an amazing experience. KATHY GALLANT It can take up to two months, MICHAEL GALLANT The problem is giving people an answer they don't want to hear. That comes across as treating them b... MICHAEL GALLANT Mount Vernon has always been very supportive of the program. MAYOR RICHARD MAVIS Even without specific numbers in front of me, we have to be spending more money because it costs mor... MAYOR RICHARD MAVIS We should get that down to one pill by the end of the year. It's very impressive. DR. JOEL GALLANT There is nothing new about turning science into politics. This has been going on for some time in th... DR. JOEL GALLANT This is the way we're going for patients with HIV (who are) starting therapy for the first time. It'... DR. JOEL GALLANT This is telling me, personally, that something is wrong. But we still have to see what happens later... DR. JOEL GALLANT