I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.
Bette DavisRead
I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oftentimes disagreeable... I suppose I'm larger than life.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the speaker's strong and uncompromising personality traits, suggesting that such qualities contribute to a larger-than-life character.
Bette Davis describes her complex personality, highlighting traits that are often seen as flaws—such as being tactless or intractable—yet she embraces these characteristics as part of what makes her extraordinary. This acknowledgment of her flaws illustrates the idea that an impactful life is not one of conformity or ease, but rather one of authenticity and vibrancy, even amidst challenges.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing one's unique traits.
I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.
Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.
Today everyone is a star - they're all billed as 'starring' or 'also starring'. In my day, we earned that recognition.
Once the love bug wears off, as it inevitably does, you are shocked to discover that you really didn't know the object of your affections at all. We know this to be so, even as we repeat the same mistake over and over and over.
If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull.
You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.
Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.
There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn't one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.
The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes before he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not living.
Everyone who is taken by death asks for more time, while everyone who still has time makes excuses for procrastination.
Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations.
Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can't stop, and you've got so many stories to look forward to.
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