University Iowa Quotes & Sayings

When I say that I went to grad school in Iowa City, people often assume that I went to the famed writers' workshop MFA program at the University of Iowa. I didn't. I got a master's in journalism. — Chelsea Cain

Naturalness?' I said, loudly. 'This lot'll tell you anything is natural; they'll tell you greed and hate and jealousy and paranoia and unthinking religious awe and fear of God and hating anybody who's another colour or thinks different is natural. Hating blacks or hating whites or hating women or hating men or hating gays; that's natural. Dog-eat-dog, looking out for number one, no lame ducks . . . Shit, they're so convinced about what's natural it's the more sophisticated ones that'll tell you suffering and evil are natural and necessary because otherwise you can't have pleasure and goodness. They'll tell you any one of their rotten stupid systems is the natural and right one, the one true way; what's natural to them is whatever they can use to fight their own grimy corner and fuck everybody else. They're no more natural than us than an amoeba is more natural than them just because it's cruder. — Iain M. Banks

I promise, Julia. I love you more than anything in my life. That will never change. — Kahlen Aymes

According to catalog copy for a forthcoming book from the University of Iowa Press, Reading as Therapy: What Contemporary Fiction Does for Middle-Class Americans, by Timothy Aubry, "contemporary fiction serves primarily as a therapeutic tool for lonely, dissatisfied middle-class American readers, one that validates their own private dysfunctions while supporting elusive communities of strangers unified by shared feelings". — Timothy Aubry

Some years ago Professor Patrick, of the Iowa State University, kept three young men awake for four days and nights. When his observations on them were finished, the subjects were permitted to sleep themselves out. All awoke from this sleep completely refreshed, but the one who took longest to restore himself from his long vigil only slept one-third more time than was regular with him. — William James

For graduate school I ended up going to the University of Iowa, which is, of course, the best graduate writing program in the country. — Elin Hilderbrand

The past and the future were starlight, seemingly so close, but forever out of reach.
Eli felt that starlight, the infinity of knowing nothing but his finite existence. — Daniel J. Rice

When I went to the University of Iowa in order to be a writer, I thought, This is the worst way to learn how to write. To sit in a room with a bunch of would-be writers, who want to write the Great American Novel, every one of them, and you read their stories and they read yours, and you're not living a life. I don't like that. I like learning on the job. The character of my work has definitely evolved from the character of my life. — Joe Frank

I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa. — John Dalton

According to her, I didn't have an ounce of tact. That simply wasn't true. It wasn't my fault that they were all incompetent asshats. "Are — Adele Abbott

One of the most bizarre and intriguing findings is that people with brain damage may be particularly good investors. Why? Because damage to certain parts of the brain can impair the emotional responses that cause the rest of us to do foolish things. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and the University of Iowa conducted an experiment that compared the investment decisions made by fifteen patients with damage to the areas of the brain that control emotions (but with intact logic and cognitive functions) to the investment decisions made by a control group. The brain-damaged investors finished the game with 13 percent more money than the control group, largely, the authors believe, because they do not experience fear and anxiety. The impaired investors took more risks when there were high potential payoffs and got less emotional when they made losses.7 This — Charles Wheelan

Why is life? Don't ask about it. Live it. — Alfred Bester

M.F.K. Fisher says it well: There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. It's like religion. If you have a glass of water and a crust of bread with someone and you really share it, it is much more than just bread and water. I really believe that. Breaking bread is a simile for sharing bread ... you cannot swallow if you are angry or hateful. You choke a bit ... it's all very betraying, how we eat. — Simon Carey Holt

If I know what your messages are, if I can read those, I'll probably be able to conclude where you're going, who you're with, the location the message was sent. — Tim Cook

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.
~Maya Angelou
Remember this because it will happen many times in your life. When people show you who they are the first time believe them. Not the 29th. time. When a man doesn't call you back the first time, when you are mistreated the first time, when someone shows you lack of integrity or dishonesty the first time, know that this will be followed many many other times, that will some point in life come back to haunt or hurt you. Live your life in truth. Don't pretend to be someone you're not. You will survive anything if you live your life from the point of view of truth. — Oprah Winfrey

Or maybe it was my definition of "perfect" that had changed. Somewhere between the chicken soup and the butter-bleeding pie, I'd made peace with the God of pots and pans - not because God wanted to meet me in the kitchen, but because He wanted to meet me everywhere, in all things, big or small. Knowing that God both inhabits and transcends our daily vocations, no matter how glorious or mundane, should be enough to unite all women of faith and end that nasty cycle of judgment we get caught in these days. — Rachel Held Evans

There must be an alternative between Hollywood and New York, between those two places psychically as well as geographically. The University of Iowa tries to offer such a community, congenial to the young writer, with his uneasiness about writing as an honorable career, or with his excess of ego about calling himself a writer. — Paul Engle

We all know from growing up with TV that John Wells shows are usually very large ensembles with amazingly written characters. He tends to redefine the way stories are told in a specific genre, whether it's 'China Beach,' 'The West Wing,' or 'E.R.' — Michael Cudlitz

When I left the University of Iowa and made the decision to come to Rutgers, I said to my athletic director, as both of us stood there crying, 'I wish I could just take Iowa to the East Coast. That would be the best of all worlds.' Of course, I couldn't. I have the best of all worlds now by being at Rutgers, being in this part of the country and being able to embrace and receive the great prestige that is part of the Big Ten. — C. Vivian Stringer

The early 1990s was a time of great advancements in precooked bacon technology. Pork producers, food labs, and agricultural schools such as Iowa State University began investing substantially in precooked R&D. — David Sax

There a series of Catholic rituals and teachings had offered her young life a coherent universe. By 1946, Savannah had for O'Connor ceded to the university world of Iowa, where new influences, including intellectual joys, brought with them questions and skepticism. — Flannery O'Connor

Our family was very fond of the University of Iowa. We thought it was a good place to go. — James Van Allen

(Researchers at the University of Iowa have for years been studying a woman, known in the literature as S.M., whose amygdala was destroyed by a rare disease - and who cannot, as a consequence, experience fear.) — Scott Stossel

We came up with this idea of a power struggle between two people who really love each other, and 'Doll & Em' took off. Calling it by our own names was the director's idea, but hopefully people will understand that we're playing versions of ourselves. — Dolly Wells

Another well-known study, led by Nancy Andreasen, used structured interviews and matched control groups to examine thirty writers at the prestigious University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Eighty percent of the writers met formal criteria for a major mood disorder, compared with thirty percent of controls matched for age, education, and sex. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

God helps him who strives hard. — Euripides