A Quote by Don Novello

I have like 250 letters that I have to whittle it down to 150. Only then do you have the whole overview of a book. When it was finally edited, at least my take was, everybody's lying. You know?
Back when the Bible was written, then edited, then rewritten, then rewritten, then re-edited, then translated from dead languages, then re-translated, then edited, then rewritten, then given to kings for them to take their favorite parts, then rewritten, then re-rewritten, then translated again, then given to the pope for him to approve, then rewritten, then edited again, the re-re-re-re-rewritten again...all based on stories that were told orally 30 to 90 years AFTER they happened.. to people who didnt know how to write... so...
I get thousands of letters, and they give me a feeling of how each book is perceived. Often I think I have written about a certain theme, but by reading the letters or reviews, I realise that everybody sees the book differently.
"Summer Sisters" is probably my least autobiographical book. The whole idea started with rowing down the pond. And I heard an explosion. I don't like sudden loud noises. They scare me. And then all these people came running down the hill and jumped in the water in their finery and a bride and groom was with them, and that's where it all started.
'Smoke On The Water' was ignored by everybody to begin with. We only did it in the shows because it was a filler track from 'Machine Head.' But then, one radio station picked up on it, and Warner Bros. edited it down to about three and a half minutes. It then started getting played by lots of different radio stations.
We all grew up on movies with scenes where the actor is lying, and you know he's lying, but he wants to make sure you know it's a lie, and so he overacts and all but winks at you, and everybody in the world except for the girl he's talking to knows he's lying.
Finishing a song is definitely the hardest part. It's, you know, you can polish it forever and then whittle it down into something it wasn't and be like, "I need to build it back up," which is why some tracks have 400 versions. But I guess you know when it's done when...I have a maximalist approach to sound when I can't find any more space to put new sounds.
I would buy Barbies and take them apart and then remake their looks. I used them for hairstyling. It was a whole process. I had a lot of dolls - like 150.
All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.
I might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something I want to do. You don't always whittle down, sometimes you whittle up.
I was always looking for the most dramatic emphasis. One example would be the letter writing, or the reading of the letters. If you remember from the book, they find the letters and then in the most undramatic way they take them downstairs, they get approval, they sit at a table during the day with their own author, across from each other.
Just like Lara Jean in my book 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before,' I used to write letters to boys I was in love with - letters full of emotion and longing and also recrimination - but they were for my eyes only.
Think about it: everybody you know, everyone that you meet, also know about 250 people. So every time you cultivate a relationship with one new person, you have actually expanded your personal inventory by 250 people - every single time.
Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.
I go into the gym and do 75 pullups, 75 dips, 150 squats, 150 pushups, and then 20 minutes of ab work. Done. It takes an hour; I'm in and out. I sweat the whole time.
I have no problem whatsoever with a kind of political overview or an ideological overview for any of these outlets as long as it's transparent. We know where Breitbart stands, we know where Fox stands, where MSNBC stands. So, people go in with an understanding of that.
I understand that you can never have the whole picture; inevitably, there’s stuff you don’t know, can’t know. But when it comes to Cameron I always want more than I have, would like to be able to take hold of at least one or two more pieces, if only because I’m convinced there are parts of myself inside them.
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