A Quote by Miriam Toews

My father died beside trees on iron rails... He had 77 dollars on him at the time, and we used the money for Thai takeout because, as my friend Julie says about times like this, 'You still have to eat.'
My father died right after the movie Rain Man was released. He got to see it, then literally the day before he died, he asked Mama to take him to see it one more time - because he knew he was declining. Tom's assistant at the time told him my father died, and he wrote me a very personal note. I haven't seen him since, but you can't say anything bad about Tom Cruise to me, because anybody who takes the time to do that is very special.
I got my start in the 'New York Times' because I used to read Stuart Elliot, the advertising columns. I still do. And I read him so religiously, I wanted to work for him before I died.
He had Parkinson's disease for about, I'd say diagnosed for about 11 of the last years of his life. And treatment was not as good as it is now, of course. We're still going along and he died in '85 and he was 77.
When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of?
Many people say, "When I get a million dollars, then I'll be happy because I'll have security," but that's not necessarily so. Most people who acquire a million dollars want another and then another. Or they could be like a good friend of mine who made and lost every dime of a million dollars. It didn't bother him a bit. He wasn't excited about it, but he explained to me, "Zig, I still know everything necessary to make another million dollars, and I've learned what to do not to lost it. I'll simply go back to work and earn it again.
I supported John McCain for president. I raised a million dollars for him. Still a lot of money. I supported him. He lost. He let us down. So I never liked him as much after that because I don`t like losers.
I started to make a joke that I had an imaginary friend underneath the let-out couch named Binky. I would never talk to him; I would only use him as entertainment for other people. I knew they thought that children had imaginary friends, so I was like, "I don't really believe in imaginary friends, but I want to feel like I do." I used to make a joke, "My imaginary friend Binky says this," because I knew it would get a laugh out of them.
My father died. It is still a deep regret to me this day that in choosing acting as my career I was forced to hurt him. He died too early to see I had done the right, the only thing.
We had nothing in hand and my father used to live on the street. The profession of acting happened to him when B.R. Chopra picked him up for a film, and my father acted just to earn money for survival.
My grandfather died before I was born, so I never had the chance to speak with him about his father. But I learned about him from books.
My mother had taught shorthand and typing to support us since my father died, and secretly she hated it and hated him for dying and leaving no money because he didn't trust life insurance salesmen.
I played the piano as a boy for six years, from the time I was six to 12 years old. My piano lessons ended when my father died because our family had no more money. I used to have a mestiza teacher. She'd come once a week to teach me piano lessons, and she'd bribe me each time with an apple; otherwise, I wouldn't play.
My first big disappointment is always, why don't I look like Julie Christie? Then I realise I don't look remotely like Julie Christie, and that's always a great sadness to me. Because I used to think I might have done, at one time. And I'm too fat. And I'm too old. You always see your faults, you see.
In Jack Dempsey's early days he had a fight contract, which paid him two dollars per fight for the fights he won. He received nothing for the fights he lost. Jack Dempsey said that in his early days he was knocked down a lot of times and he usually was tempted to stay down because he knew that no one would hit him again until he started to get up. But Jack was a hungry fighter and he knew that if he was going to eat, he must get up in order to get the two dollars. He tells of one occasion when he was knocked down 11 times in one fight, and 11 times he got up in order to win the $2.
I met a guy who had the same theory and wrote a book about it. His name is Walter C. Wright Jr. His book is called Gravity Is a Push. I wrote to him and told him about my father, and he said he wished he'd met him. My father died quite a while ago.
I wouldn't say it's to the point where I hate him or nothing like that because he's not with my mom or he wasn't there when I was growing up. He's my father whether I like it or not - he helped give me life. So I still love him and everything. Sometimes I wished he was with me, and other times I didn't.
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