227 Quotes by Ruth Ozeki

  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    The wondrous thing about nature, her gift to us, is her wanton promiscuity. She reproduces herself with abandon, with teeming infinite generosity.

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  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    Inspiration comes from everything from the entire world, and its hard to pinpoint one thing. I can trace one inspiration to the writing of 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji, who writes beautifully about time.

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  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    When Im writing a novel, which is what I like to write, I get up early, sit zazen, make a pot of green tea. I wear wrist cuffs to keep my wrists warm and minimize irritation from extended contact with the surface of my desk. I sit down and write.

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  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    I think that if we don't learn to inhabit other people's perspectives, then we're never going to understand why people do what they do.

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  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    Writing a book is a way of thinking to me, the only way of thinking that I have found successful.

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  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    language is magical - it's a form of conjuring. If you do it convincingly, readers will follow you.

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  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    It takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires.

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  • Author Ruth Ozeki
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    By the time we, consumers, are aware of processes like genetic engineering, they're already being done. It's sort of like the war in Iraq: By the time we know about it, it's almost a fait accompli. And that's certainly true with science.

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