A Quote by Jessica Pare
I went through a whole phase when I was younger of being obsessed with Tolstoy and Kafka and Camus, all those really, beautiful, dark depressing books.
Related Quotes
Out of Dostoevsky: Kafka. Out of Tolstoy: Margaret Mitchell. (in conversation, explaining his dislike for Tolstoy)
For me, I'm a fan of really dark, depressing stuff. Even something like The Wire, which can be hugely depressing and really serious, the bits I always remember are the jokes, you know?
I literally feel like books saved my life. I found these people. Me reading Camus and Kafka, all of the tortured teenager stuff of someone who's falling in love with books. These people, these writers had the questions. They may not have had the answers, but they're not afraid to look at the questions head on. It was just life-changing for me. Yeah, books, honestly, I can't even tell you. I feel saved by books; I feel like they let me be who I was and find the world I wanted to be in.
I was a real tomboy for most of my life. Then I went through a really girlie period, then through a goth phase. I was so obsessed with my hair and makeup, and I was having so much fun as a teenager playing with my look.
It took a long while for me to know that I'm beautiful. I remember going through this phase when I was younger of wanting to pass by mirrors and not look at them. That was so ridiculous. I've learned now that beauty starts from within.
I am sometimes asked to name my favourite books. The list changes, depending on my mood, the year, tricks played by memory. I might mention novels by Nabokov and Calvino and Tolkien on one occasion, by Fitzgerald and Baldwin and E.B. White on another. Camus often features, as do Tolstoy, Borges, Morrison and Manto.
A friend of mine that I was in a band with started me on Kafka, which in turn led to Camus and Sartre.
My natural hair is jet black. I used to have it down to my bum. And I went through a phase of being obsessed with fake tan. So from the age of 14 to 16, I looked like an Apache Indian!
I think if I were reading to a grandchild, I might read Tolstoy's War and Peace. They would learn about Russia, they would learn about history, they would learn about human nature. They would learn about, "Can the individual make a difference or is it great forces?" Tolstoy is always battling with those large issues. Mostly, a whole world would come alive for them through that book.
Americans are really obsessed with their teeth being white and straight, aren't they? I saw this little girl the other day with one of those whole head braces. Elastic all the way around! How traumatizing for a child to have to wear one of those! You look like a monster.
I heard a story the other night about an editor who visited the Iowa Workshop and, when asked what sorts of books she published, replied, "Classic books." One of the students asked her, "You mean like Kafka?" Apparently she said, "Oh, I don't think I would publish Kafka."
Good friends are often our lifelines. Mine have seen me through heartbreak, through the deaths of loved ones, and through that phase in college when I was obsessed with denim jumpsuits and matching fingerless gloves.
A great thing is happening on cable TV. You see characters change in stories over years, like in Tolstoy. That's a whole, thrilling new form that I really enjoy. They are Tolstoy-an in their endless character development and narrative changes... a show like 'Breaking Bad' is astonishing.
During the '80s, those you would call the young philosophers of France, such as Bernard-Henri Lévy and [André ] Gluxman, pointed out that Camus had said things no one wanted to hear in the political arena. They said it was [Albert] Camus who was right, not those who had slid under the influence of Sartre, that is to say an unconditional devotion to Communism as seen in the Soviet Union. And ever since then the evaluation of Camus has continued to modify up until today
My whole lifestyle is different. I have a really busy schedule, and I pretty much have an airplane ride every day. But I like it. It's cool. I like being busy. I think that it's good that I'm young and I'm going through this, and I'm not, like, 40. I think it's just easier now at a younger age to be going through what I'm going through because it's definitely really tiring and hard on the body.
By the time Kafka was seven or eight years old, he already had a relatively dark view of the world derived from experiences in his own family. This told him that the world was organized in a strictly hierarchical manner and that those on the top were allowed to mete out punishment in any way they chose. They were entitled to leave those on the bottom uninformed about the rules to which they subscribed; they weren't even required to follow their own rules - this is how Kafka described it in his later Letter to My Father.
Related Authors
Angelina Jolie Quotes
American
Actress
Carrie Fisher Quotes
American
Actress
Cate Blanchett Quotes
Australian
Actress
Drew Barrymore Quotes
American
Actress
Emma Watson Quotes
British
Actress
Jane Fonda Quotes
American
Actress
Jennifer Aniston Quotes
American
Actress
Kate Winslet Quotes
English
Actress
Kristen Stewart Quotes
American
Actress
Lena Dunham Quotes
American
Actress
Marilyn Monroe Quotes
American
Actress
Meryl Streep Quotes
American
Actress
Mindy Kaling Quotes
American
Actress
Sandra Bullock Quotes
American
Actress
Selena Gomez Quotes
American
Actress
Viola Davis Quotes
American
Actress