American - Novelist | June 28, 1947 -
The greatest fight is when you are fighting in the smoke and cannot see with your eyes.
Mark Helprin
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Of course, everyone in the New World is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, and immigrants have built America and continue to do so. Legal or illegal, they are almost universally good people who work to better their lot and that of their children.
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The human race is intoxicated with narrow victories, for life is a string of them like pearls that hit the floor when the rope breaks, and roll away in perfection and anarchy.
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You will most appreciate 'Freddy and Fredericka' if you are familiar with the story of the Fall, the Good Hermit, 'Tom Jones,' 'Huckleberry Finn,' 'Paradise Lost,' 'Henry V,' and 'My Cousin Vinny.' That doesn't mean that you can't enjoy or understand it on an emotional level, free of all allusion, which is the test of any book of fiction.
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I was raised on the Hudson, in a house that had been the stable of the financier and Civil War general Brayton Ives. In midcentury, we had fire pits in the floor for heating, and rats everywhere, because they nested in the hay insulation.
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I have been fighting over commas all my life.
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Accident is as much a part of fiction as anything else, symbolic of the grace that, along with will, conspires to put words on the page.
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I used to write exclusively with one particular Montblanc fountain pen, although lately I have had to use a roller-tip fountain pen, because I find it harder and harder to control the fine muscles of my right hand during prolonged periods of work. I buy boxes of Deluxe Uni-ball pens, use them until they start to drag, and then change.
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The best way to meet a woman is in an emergency situation - if you're in a shipwreck, or you find yourself behind enemy lines, or in a flood.
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Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
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Of course, you would have to be insane to hope your child grows up to be a playwright or poet. Given the odds, you would have to be quite cavalier about your children's future.
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My father ran London Films. He made films like 'The Red Shoes,' 'The Third Man.' And he had had a long career in the film business, which was bifurcated with a career in intelligence. He had to deal with gangsters, and sometimes he would take me with him. Also, I went to school with their children.
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