A Quote by William Maxwell

What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory--meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion--is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.

William Maxwell

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About Acceptable Any Been Breath Case Changes Conflicting Conform Continually Draw Emotional End Ever Every Fact Form Goes Goes On Interests Involved Lie Life Many Meaning Memory Mind Moment Oblivion Often Past Possibly Rate Really Rearrange Refer Scene Storyteller Storytelling Talking Telling Thereby Things Too Wholly Work

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William Maxwell
American - Novelist
August 16, 1908 - July 31, 2000

What we refer to confidently as memory is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling.

William Maxwell

In talking about the past, we lie with every breath we draw.

William Maxwell

I wouldn’t treat a romantic scene any differently than any other scene. I would really say the biggest preparation was chewing gum and breath mints! For a kissing scene, it’s all about the breath mints!

Alice Englert

I wouldn't treat a romantic scene any differently than any other scene. I would really say the biggest preparation was chewing gum and breath mints! For a kissing scene, it's all about the breath mints!

Alice Englert

Memory is the best of all gardens. Therein, winter and summer, the seeds of their past lie dormant, ready to spring into instant bloom at any moment the mind wishes to bring them to life.

Hal Boyle

The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins. They are talking about things they didn't see. It's amazing. It's a wonderful moment. Parents should celebrate. 'Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!' All right! It calls for celebration.

Kim Young-ha

I do get very involved in making a scene work without giving too much thought about how it affects the overall, which I think is hard to know in any case.

Tom Drury

You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice. You've got to keep your mind off pitying your own rotten luck and setting up any kind of a howl about it. You've got to remember that things as bad as this and a hell of a lot worse have happened to millions of people before and that they've come through it and that you will too.

James Agee

Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways. When we find new eyes, the unsuspected blessing in work we have done for many years may take us completely by surprise. We can see life in many ways: with the eye, with the mind, with the intuition. But perhaps it is only those who speak the language of meaning, who have remembered how to see with the heart, that life is ever deeply known or served.

Rachel Naomi Remen

I teach you that there is no other aim than to live with such totality that each moment becomes a celebration. The very idea of "aim" brings future into the mind, because any aim, any end, any goal, needs future. All your goals deprive you of your present, which is the only reality you have. The future is only your imagination, and the past is just footprints left in the sands of your memory. Neither is the past real anymore, nor is the future real yet. This moment is the only reality.

Rajneesh

Often you find actors have big hearts; they're quite emotional people. Talking to actors who date other actors, and talking to people who deal with other actors, they often get emotionally caught up in lots of different things. They often wear their hearts on their sleeves. They feel things quite a lot - often to the nth degree, which I can imagine could make it quite difficult to date some of us. I think it's about having an emotional availability that you can kind of draw on. But I'm also searching for that. I'll be searching for the answer to that question for the rest of my life.

Douglas Booth

A person who lives moment to moment, who goes on dying to the past, is never attached to anything. Attachment comes from the accumulated past. If you can be unattached to the past every moment, then you are always fresh, young, just born. You pulsate with life and that pulsation gives you immortality. You are immortal, only unaware of the fact.

Rajneesh

I often tell my students that you can't worry about the end of an improv scene because the end is not up to you. You just play as hard as you can until someone changes the scene. The scene has changedthe end is not up to us.

Mark Sutton

I don't see any harm with coming out and talking about your life and talking about problems and talking about things that happened when you're past certain situations.

Kendra Wilkinson

With films, I just scribble a couple of notes for a scene. You don't have to do any writing at all, you just have your notes for the scene, which are written with the actors and the camera in mind. The actual script is a necessity for casting and budgeting, but the end product often doesn't bear much resemblance to the script--at least in my case.

Woody Allen

Has it ever struck you ... that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going? It’s really all memory ... except for each passing moment.

Eric Kandel

A Quote by William Maxwell

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