Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I turned six in 1977. Youth athletics then was nothing like this, and I wondered how things changed so much. I started looking at our societal emphasis on sports, using the most tangible metric by which we measure emphasis: money. "

Related Quotes:

" It's common knowledge that professional athletes earn extraordinary incomes. What is less known or understood is how the advent of these riches has seeped into the conscious and unconscious ways in which our society now parents children. "

Douglas Brunt

Children

Society

Knowledge

" In September of 2001, I was living in the West Village of Manhattan, working from my home for a tech start-up. "

" The main influence on voters should be a series of robust debates among the candidates. It's a free country, so this is a tough problem to solve, but I'd love to see an election season with zero political ads, and all voters had to decide based on watching four national debates over the two months leading to election day. "

" Your spouse, a sibling, a friend need to read your drafts. They have to be people unafraid to tell you what sucks. For early feedback, that's more important than professional editorial skill. Most people know what sucks. "

" The last book I read before I wrote my first book - 'Ghosts of Manhattan' - was 'The Gold Coast' by DeMille. I loved it, and it gave me a lot of energy to start into my own. "

Douglas Brunt

Start

Loved

" Washington isn't utterly dysfunctional. "

" Three hours of creating is taxing on any brain, and you should stop there. Some days, you may stop without any words at all. It's much easier to write new stuff the next day than to go through painful deletions of a day's worth of crap you already wrote. "

" My parents had the plan for my life from the moment my mother tested positive with me. Looking back now, I'd say the hard turn for me was when I left school after the eighth grade to play tennis full time and study some with a travelling tutor. "

" I've thought about bringing my children to retrace my own steps of the morning of September 11, 2001, but they're too young for that. Maybe when they're twenty. Maybe by then, even though it's been only a short subway ride away for years now, I'll have the nerve to see the 9-11 memorial for the first time. "

" New York is big, fast, energetic, and has the most and best of everything. While it can push the senses, it's the most convenient place to live. It's much easier for a ninety year old to live in New York City than in the suburbs. NYC is the best mass assisted-living facility on the planet. "

" Style matters, but the real force of writing is ideas, not style. "

" I've been pretty damn happy since 2001. More apparent danger than real danger for me, and even the apparent danger hasn't kept me from feeling warm, safe and loved. I've found love and a partner to raise three children that I'm glad to have brought into this beautiful world. "

" Dad was a retired hedge fund manager who made enough millions to retire and focus on my game. Before that, he was on the 1984 U.S. Olympic swimming team. No medals. He was accustomed to winning at everything, but no medals in 1984. "

" A tennis racket lurks in my earliest memories like a sick relative who had come to live with us. When I look at my baby pictures, there it is, resting in my crib in the place of a rattle or chew toy. "

" Don't write more than 3 hours at a time. I write three hours in the morning, 9 A.M. - 12 P.M. Other people are best late at night. "

" I've seen terrorism close up, but I don't live in a state of terror at all. I'm comfortable going to the Manhattan Thanksgiving Day Parade, the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, Times Square on New Years Eve. For perspective, the world today is a safer place than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Airlift, World War II. "

" On Wall Street, every story becomes known so quickly. They are all so connected that everything disseminates there faster than anywhere. "

" A theme I'm obsessed with is the tension between human nature and the frameworks designed to curb the worst and promote the best of it. "

" In my first book, 'Ghosts Of Manhattan,' the setting was Wall Street, and I explored the predictable nature of a bond trader inside the compensation scheme at Bear Stearns and the government regulations of Wall Street. That was about money. "

" When the kids are down, I have a drink and watch 'The Kelly File.' "

" I prefer a change of surroundings anyway, and I like to be around some energy and white noise, so I usually go to a Barnes & Noble cafe or to the library on 5th and 42nd. In the afternoons, I do research, reading, editing, and play with the kids. "

" I like to write in the mornings, so I try to protect 9 A.M. - 12 P.M. for me. I can drop our older two kids at school then write for a few hours. "

" Spend more time working before you write page one. Then, the story - at least parts of it - will feel as though it is writing itself. "

" Don't copy another writer's style, because that is not authentic, and that's how it will sound. You develop your style over your whole life and through countless influences. Don't impose something artificial. "

" I do like Pat Conroy, and 'The Great Santini' is an iconic book. "

" New York can get on top of you if you don't have much money, but if you have money, it's kind of a playground. "

" At six years old, our son had friends who played soccer from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M., Monday through Friday. A six-year-old practicing as much as a Division I athlete. "

" The job for cable is to give the news and then also give the 'so what.' "

" It's much easier to get disgusted when you've already banked 20 million bucks. "

" There used to be a few 'Great Santinis', but now there's many 'Great Santinis'. "