Quotes About Ambivalence

I hadn't ever felt any particular calling to be a novelist, and I clearly remember telling a friend of mine about six months before I started work on 'Elsewhere' that I would never write a novel.

After these three novels I gave up writing novels for a time; I was dissatisfied with romantic doom, yet didn't see much way around it.

You know that feeling when you finish a final exam and you think, 'I never want to do that again'? Well I have the same feeling when I finish a novel. Each time I say, 'I think I may retire now' and then after six months the ideas start to churn again. I could never stop.

People talk about the Ozzfest and what it can do for your career, and I guess I'm just oblivious to it.

On one occasion I saw a banner where my name read 'Sarvasri Bharat Balachandra Menon.' I was amused and decided to find out the reason for this coinage. One of the organizers confessed rather sheepishly that they were sure about me getting the Bharat award but were doubtful if I was a Padma Shri awardee.

I cannot bear that chirpy Bobby Kennedy, always building his beaver's nest with a few more facts. He needs to look into the abyss.

When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd even bothered.

But that's just as bad," protested Milo. "You mean just as good," corrected the Humbug. "Things which are equally bad are also equally good. Try to look at the bright side of things." "I don't know which side of anything to look at," protested Milo. "Everything is so confusing and all your words only make things worse.

they were no longer quite sure what they should be laughing at or objecting to.

Her action in defending Marcão meant one thing to him and something quite different to her; it was so different that it was not even the same event.

The uncle lit up and blew smoke in a thin blue viper's breath toward the window. It coiled and diffused in the yellow light. He smiled. I'd like to have a dollar for every time I quit, he said.

Even if you knew what to do you wouldnt know what to do. You wouldnt know if you wanted to do it or not.

I'm of two minds about this shit. Two minds. Yeah. I aint sure I'm cut out for domestic bliss. Probably not.

I had spoken to the universe, and the universe hadn't given a damn.

The margin between staying and leaving was so thin; really, it could have gone either way.

Yet even so, the margin between staying and leaving was so thin. Really, it could have gone either way. Sometimes I think that my years of diligent schoolwork and political idealism had given me the erroneous notion that if one choice, one plan, was hard and the other was easy, doing the hard thing was inherently better—worthier, more upstanding.

She rose slowly. She didn't want to go. She also rather resented staying.

The self has no sign of itself... For me, certain signifiers fit you, and not others. For me, all signifiers fit me, one as well as another. I am rascal, hero, craven, brave, treacherous, loyal, at once the secret hero and asshole of the Cosmos.

New Orleans may be too seductive for a writer.

fifty-fifty on believing

And yet when the cup of power neared his lips, he became strangely hesitant, reluctant, perhaps coy.

I could stay at the bottom of the organization chart, as an engineer.

No, no, no, no, no. Not at all. People take jobs they don't want, stay in marriages they hate, pay taxes for things they don't wanna do, and live among people they don't like. They love their enemies and hate their friends, break their promises and forget about bein' happy altogether.

It's a disheartening feeling when you can't stand the touch of someone but neither can you push them away.