James Gould Cozzens

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In the present, every day is a miracle.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Miracle
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When you can, always advise people to do what you see they really want to do. Doing what they want to do, they may succeed; doing what they don't want to do, they won't
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Success
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A cynic is just a man who found out when he was about ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset. Yes, there'll be more war ; and soon, I don't doubt. There always has been. There'll be deaths and disappointments and failures. When they come, you meet them.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Disappointment
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There never could be a man so brave that he would not sometime, or in the end, turn part or all coward; or so wise that he was not, from beginning to end, part ass if you knew where to look; or so good that nothing at all about him was despicable.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Wise
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The innocent supposition, entertained by most people, that even if they are not brilliant, they are not dumb, is correct only in a very relative sense.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: People
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Be virtuous and you'll be happy Nonsense Be happy and you'll begin to be virtuous.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Nonsense
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Real rebels are rarely anything but second rate outside their rebellion; the drain of time and temper is ruinous to any other accomplishment.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Real
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Bailey might not have great intelligence or abilities, but his whole aim, thought and study was that of the born leader--to look out for himself; and he did it with that born-leader's confidence and intensity that draws along the ordinary uncertain man, who soon confuses his own interest and his own safety with that of the leader.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Men
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I can't read ten pages of Steinbeck without throwing up.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Pages
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The first test of ability and intelligence is to find a field of endeavor in which profits are large and risks small.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Risk
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A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Funny
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Because in fact I only lived to write, see no sense in life, have only forced "interests," wish every night, not urgently but quite definitely I could just not wake up tomorrow.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Writing
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I meditate and put on a rubber tire with three bottles of beer. Most of the time I just sit picking my nose and thinking.
- James Gould Cozzens
Collection: Beer