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" Style matters, but the real force of writing is ideas, not style. "
Douglas Brunt
Style
Real
Matters
Related Quotes:
" From a distance, the American political system is a remarkable success. We have accomplished the peaceful transfer of power for more than two hundred years, and that's unmatched by any civilization in human history. Up close, our political system still has all the ugliness and bad actors that you might suspect. "
Douglas Brunt
Power
Success
You
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
I Can
Two
Protect
" Adverbs lead to overwriting. Try taking them out and reading your prose again to see how it sounds. Simple and less words are more powerful. "
Douglas Brunt
Words
Try
Simple
" D.C. is a small town with some big-town features. "
Douglas Brunt
Small
Features
Town
" The job for cable is to give the news and then also give the 'so what.' "
Douglas Brunt
Give
Job
Then
" I'm really troubled by the prevalence of single-sport specializations. I want my kids to do as many things for as long as they can. Specialization is a natural thing that should come later - it shouldn't come for 8-year-olds. "
Douglas Brunt
Want
Natural
Things
" Wall Street has played a role in everyone's life, and it has been vilified by everyone, but I think that the average trader didn't have a sense of what was coming. The culture is so vacuous, it's possible to come to it straight out of college and never have a real adult life, even if you have the wife and kids. "
Douglas Brunt
Culture
Life
Wife
" 'The Means' is about power. I have access to political insiders who helped me write a portrait of the real day-to-day in politics, which turned out to be crazier than Wall Street. "
Douglas Brunt
Portrait
Power
Politics
" There used to be a few 'Great Santinis', but now there's many 'Great Santinis'. "
Douglas Brunt
Great
Now
Used
" 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
Me
Loved
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Monday
Son
Soccer
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Ride
Short
Children
" 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
" The important thing is to write when your brain is at its best. Work edits or do outside reading with the rest of the day. "
Douglas Brunt
Rest
Best
Brain
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Measure
Sports
Youth
" With tennis, if you're very good at a young age, you don't even go to your prom. You're down at some tennis academy in Florida where you're on the court 8 hours a day. It's brutal. "
Douglas Brunt
Good
You
Young
" In September of 2001, I was living in the West Village of Manhattan, working from my home for a tech start-up. "
Douglas Brunt
Home
September
Village
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
People
Best
Late
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Professional
People
Friend
" If there is going to be any meaningful sales, it's going to be through word of mouth and people recommending it to their book club and then a thousand more book clubs do it, and then you get into real sales numbers. "
Douglas Brunt
Numbers
People
Sales
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Time
Writing
You
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Play
Energy
Reading
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Life
Moment
Mother
" A comparison of the average professional baseball salary to the national average salary over the last one hundred years shows that for the first fifty years, 1920-1970, baseball players held a steady multiple of about 3.4 times the national average income. "
Douglas Brunt
Baseball
Professional
Salary
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
City
Best
Live
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Live
Look
Memories
" When the kids are down, I have a drink and watch 'The Kelly File.' "
Douglas Brunt
Down
Watch
Kids
" Washington isn't utterly dysfunctional. "
Douglas Brunt
Utterly
Dysfunctional
Washington
" 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. "
Douglas Brunt
Money
Bond
Book
" Dad met Mom in 1983 during the lead-up to the 1984 games. She was an Olympic downhill skier. In those days, the winter and summer games were held in different cities but in the same year, so there was more intermingling of winter and summer athletes at social functions. "
Douglas Brunt
Year
Summer
Winter