Myth Quotes - Page 30

• I do not know who first invented the myth of sexual equality. But it is a myth willfully fostered and nourished by certain semi-scientists and other fiction writers. And it has done more, I suspect, to unsettle marital happiness than any other false doctrine of this myth-ridden age.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Age, Doctrine, Fiction

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

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• You know, I didn't have enough money to quit my day job... the myth of the major label deal. Nowadays, you have a tour bus and a stylist and all this stuff. But back then, no way.

  Mary Chapin Carpenter

  Jobs, Labels, Stylist

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• I was initially planning to write about grief in terms of Eurydice and the myth thereof. By that point the overall metaphor of height and depth and flat and falling and rising was coming into being in my mind.

  Julian Barnes

  Grief, Fall, Writing

  "Julian Barnes: The sense of another ending". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. March 30, 2013.

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• America is the world's living myth. There's no sense of wrong when you kill an American or blame America for some local disaster. This is our function, to be character types, to embody recurring themes that people can use to comfort themselves, justify themselves and so on. We're here to accommodate. Whatever people need, we provide. A myth is a useful thing.

  Don DeLillo

  Character, America, People

  Don DeLillo (2012). “The Names”, p.114, Vintage

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• There can't be a pure myth, especially when the myth has been handed down in the oral tradition. As the stories are told, they change. If the stories don't change they just die.

  Maxine Hong Kingston

  Stories, Oral Tradition, Don't Change

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• Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.

  Jonathan Raban

  Art, Real, Men

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• One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the happy marriage. We have been taught to accept the myth not as an heroic ideal, something good, brave, and nearly impossible to fulfil, but as the very fiber of normal life. Given most families and most marriages, the belief seems admirable but foolhardily.

  Jonathan Raban

  Family, Acceptance, Brave

  Jonathan Raban (1992). “For Love and Money: A Writing Life”, Perennial

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• The tricky or boastful gods of ancient myths and primitive folk tales are characters of the same kind that turn up in Faulkner or Tennessee Williams.

  Northrop Frye

  Character, Tennessee, Kind

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.449, University of Toronto Press

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• Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another: a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth. This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life: the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler, the misunderstanding at the office. Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Memories, Thinking, Games

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• There used to be a time when the idea of heroes was important. People grew up sharing those myths and legends and ideals. Now they grow up sharing McDonalds and Disneyland.

  Bob Dylan

  Growing Up, Hero, Mcdonalds

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• If something controls you in a way that puzzles you, think of it as a mystery. Mysteries are best approached by closing your eyes and mouth to experience darkness and silence. I find new and healing images in that dark, silent place away from emotions that control me. Do not be afraid to close your eyes and be silent in prayer, meditation, rest or sleep. In those states you may rediscover a new self. Then your life, time and thoughts will become yours again and you can live your unique myth.

  Bernie Siegel

  Prayer, Sleep, Eye

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• There's the whole myth about rocket science. It's really not that hard. It's not brain surgery.

  John Powell

  Brain, Rockets, Surgery

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• Here I stand and make Both myth and reality in my own way And live the violence of my dream and of my reality.

  Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

  Dream, Reality, Self

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• Hot, dry katabatic winds, like the south foehn in Europe, the sharav in the Middle East, and the Santa Ana of Southern California, are all believed to have a decided effect on human behavior and are associated with such health problems as migraines, depression, lethargy, and moodiness. Some scientists say that this is a myth.

  Tim Cahill

  California, Europe, Wind

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• It seems like a totally gratuitous myth to tell people a giant rabbit comes round at night leaving candy in a haphazard way around the house... and the cover shows the bunny caught in the act.

  Todd Rundgren

  Night, People, House

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I would be copping out if I stayed in the myth of the '60s.

  Jerry Rubin

  Would Be, Ifs

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• Actually, I love mythology. When I was a kid I was obsessed with myth and I wanted to be a mythologist when I grew up. Then I realized I really just like stories.

  Amber Benson

  Kids, Stories, Obsessed

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• I've always believed that the facts about dancing are more interesting than the myths, and this was a great chance for me to explore how the human body does such incredible things.

  Deborah Bull

  Dancing, Interesting, Doe

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• One of the most widespread myths about the deal is that the Administration is outsourcing the security of our ports to a company from the United Arab Emirates.

  Christopher Bond

  Administration, Port, Outsourcing

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• The myth of the liberal media empowers conservatives to control debate in the United States to the point where liberals cannot even hope for a fair shake anymore.

  Eric Alterman

  Media, Empowering, United States

  Eric Alterman (2008). “What Liberal Media?: The Truth about Bias and the News”, p.18, Basic Books

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• To try to write a grand cosmical drama leads necessarily to myth. To try to let knowledge substitute ignorance in increasingly larger regions of space and time is science.

  Hannes Alfven

  Drama, Writing, Ignorance

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• I think the Sixties in some ways is a barrier to young people today. They think of it, you know, what we're doing is not that. But it's partly the myth of the Sixties. It always felt embattled and small. It always, almost always, was a small group of people relative to the opposition around.

  Bernardine Dohrn

  Thinking, People, Groups

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• The West Wing seems to be feeding the myth about how presidential politics are.

  William Devane

  Wings, Presidential, West

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• If you're going to be a myth or want to be a myth, you'd better die young.

  Alma Guillermoprieto

  Want, Young, Dies

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• I want to clear up a few myths about myself. People have written that I was a kindergarten teacher and a former Miss Texas, and neither is true.

  Krista Allen

  Teacher, Texas, People

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