Everything is relative except relatives, and they are absolute.
I did a lot of reading of first person accounts from Koreans and combatants and aid workers. And I spoke to relatives. A lot of wonderful photographs were made available to me from that period - 1950-1956 - and those were given to me by a Korean newspaper in Seoul. Ruined villages, refugees streaming through a river valley, GI's and orphans and orphanages, those tiny details that you can only see in a picture.
I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one's life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important.
What is a normal childhood? We weren't rich, we were pretty middle-class. My dad survived from job to job; with him taking care of so many relatives, he couldn't save any money.
My relatives used to laugh when I talked of being a writer.
We call our rich relatives the kin we love to touch
Today is April 1, April Fools' Day, a day that people try to fool their friends and relatives. Don't confuse that with April 15, when people try to fool the IRS.
In the movies, you want a good story and characters that are honest, but you are also looking for a good director who can lead the ship. That's how we look at business. Everybody has a great idea for a start-up, and so do their relatives, and they tell me, 'You gotta build it. ' I say, 'I have to believe in it. '
Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market. In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.
An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement. . .
Suicide is a belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives.
I do think a lot of sexual violence stems from experiences in childhood or at puberty. Some people become sadistic after suffering early abuse at the hands of parents, relatives or friends. But for others, the seed is planted in the formative years by the conflation of images of violence with those of sexual arousal. Magazines, TV shows and, especially, slasher movies are masters at doing this.
No one wants to be excelled by his relatives.
So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.
The society of my relatives can only be enjoyed with frequent intervals.
The hatred of relatives is the most violent.
My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers.
A young lady's most natural ally is her sister although sometimes our own relatives are as inscrutable to us as an antipodean.
Art and order, the relatives that refuse to relate.
Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.
