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Living "in" A Story, Being Part Of A Narrative, Is Much More Satisfying Than Living Without One. I Don't Always Know What Narrative It Is, Because I'm Living My Life And Not Always Reflecting On It, But As I Edit These Pages I Am Aware That I Have An Urge To See My Sometimes Random Wandering As Having A Plot, A Purpose Guided By Some Underlying Story.

-David Byrne

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Living "in" A Story,

David Byrne

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Living "in" A Story, Being Part Of A Narrative, Is Much More Satisfying Than Living Without One. I Don't Always Know What Narrative It Is, Because I'm Living My Life And Not Always Reflecting On It, But As I Edit These Pages I Am Aware That I Have An Urge To See My Sometimes Random Wandering As Having A Plot, A Purpose Guided By Some Underlying Story.

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In The Future, Women Will Have Breasts All Over. In The Future, It Will Be A Relief To Find A Place Without Culture. In The Future, Plates Of Food Will Have Names And Titles. In The Future, We Will All Drive Standing Up. In The Future, Love Will Be Taught On Television And By Listening To Pop Songs.

With A Lot Of What We Take To Be True Feelings, Especially On Pop Records, We Feel Them Because They're Cleverly Crafted. And Because The Words Are Written By Somebody Who Knows How To Craft Words And Draw On Those Things And Convey Those Feelings. That Doesn't Mean They're Dishonest. But It Also Doesn't Mean That It's All Just Pure Primitive Emotion Spilling Out.

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People Use Irony As A Defense Mechanism.

I'm Just An Advertisement For A Version Of Myself.

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Science's Job Is To Map Our Ignorance.

A Lot Of Cities Are Making A Real Effort, Neighborhood By Neighborhood, To Make Themselves Into A Place Where Life Can Be Pretty Good.

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I Knew I Wanted To Have A Doll Of Myself On The Cover. I Thought, I Wanna See Myself As A Ken Doll.

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It's Not Always Been A Happy Marriage. I Guess I Wanted A Quick Fix.

I Resent The Implication That I'm Less Of A Musician And A Worse Person For Not Appreciating Certain Works.

Always Be Skeptical About Simplicity.

Having Unlimited Choices Can Paralyze You Creatively.

Body Odor Is The Window To The Soul.

Window To The Soul

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The Better A Singer's Voice, The Harder It Is To Believe What They're Saying.

The Making Of Music Is Profoundly Affected By The Market.

So There's No Guarantee If You Like The Music You Will Empathize With The Culture And The People Who Made It. It Doesn't Necessarily Happen. I Think It Can, But It Doesn't Necessarily Happen. Which Is Kind Of A Shame.

It's More About The Stuff You Think About When You're Getting From Place To Place On A Bicycle Than It Is About Actually Riding The Bicycle.

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By The Time Talking Heads Were Starting, My Feeling Was To Throw Out Everything And Start From Scratch Onstage; Strip It Down To As Close To Zero As You Can Get And Then You Can Make It Yours.

Something About Music Urges Us To Engage With Its Larger Context, Beyond The Piece Of Plastic It Came On-it Seems To Be Part Of Our Genetic Makeup That We Can Be So Deeply Moved By This Art Form. Music Resonates In So Many Parts Of The Brain That We Can't Conceive Of It Being An Isolated Thing.

Sometimes I Write Stuff That Strangely Predicts What's Going To Happen In My Life.

The Arts Don't Exist In Isolation.

We're On A Road To Nowhere, Come On Inside. Takin' That Ride To Nowhere, We'll Take That Ride. I'm Feelin' Okay This Mornin', And You Know, We're On The Road To Paradise, Here We Go, Here We Go.

The Heads Were The Only Band On That Scene That Had A Groove.

Yeah, It's Pretty Hard Not To Be Completely Cynical These Days.

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Anne M. Mulcahy

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