Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The story of what has happened to women in Afghanistan, however, is a very important one, and fertile ground for fiction.
The kitchen is where we deal with the elements of the universe. It is where we come to understand our past and ourselves.
I'm always in search of those books where you don't want to stop reading, and 'Me Before You' is at the top of that list.
A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size, take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.
The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.
I guess I was raised in a household with a lot of reverence for the physical sanctity of books. You didn't destroy books.
I never thought about doing a sequel when I was actually writing 'The Magicians.' I only ever considered it a standalone.
Oddly, the meanings of books are defined for me much more by their beginnings and middles than they are by their endings.
Traveling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.
I knew, as every peasant does, that land can never be truly owned. We are the keepers of the soil, the curators of trees.
Where's the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not?
books have been my greatest comfort, castle-building a never-failing delight, and scribbling a very profitable amusement.
It's not the writer who determines how good she is anyway. Writers don't determine that. It's readers who determine that.
He is more worth to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?
My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else.
Writing offers fairly large rewards to a few successful people, but the rewards come late, and most writers are failures.
The particulars of life do not matter to the artist; they merely provide him with the opportunity to lay bare his genius.
A work should convey its entire meaning by itself, imposing it on the spectator even before he knows what the subject is.
the blue and cloudless day closes like the lid of a casket of jewels upon the violet rim of sea, and shuts out the light.
We've all got to remember to pick our battles carefully, to be prepared to lose small ones, and to hold out for big ones.
To stay in one place and watch the seasons come and go is tanatmount to constant travel: One is traveling with the earth.
In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing.
Rejoice with those who rejoice." I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep.
Having worked as both comedian and crime writer, the one thing I know is that both involve the delivery of a performance.
To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been.
Caribbean literature only has to be true to itself. It doesn't need colonialism or imperialism. It's always been vibrant.
I wish," he said, "I had known at eighteen what I know now - that there are some things on which one does not compromise.
At school, I wasn't as interested in mathematics. I did OK, but at the earliest point I could stop doing math, I stopped.
One important idea I hope is reflected in 'The Poe Shadow' is that fiction can add as much to history as nonfiction does.
... the desert, where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.
Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.
Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the maddest thing a man can do is this life is to let himself die.
Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep. It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak.
All things pass...Perhaps the passage of time is a kind of healing, or a kind of salvation granted equally to all people.
I never trust the airlines from those countries where the pilots believe in the afterlife. You are safer when they don't.
These years are still the years of my prime. It is important to recognise the years of one's prime, always remember that.
People in towns are always preoccupied. 'Have I missed the bus? Have I forgotten the potatoes? Can I get across the road?
Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!
I am interested in power and in the idea of one country exerting power over another. The Soviets took this to an extreme.
Love hurts. There is nothing as painful as heartbreak. But in order to learn to love again you must learn to trust again.
They continued to watch each other from across the room, both frozen for a moment by the shadow of distant possibilities.
...his wartime experience had taught him to trust his instincts, even though he'd never been sure where they'd come from.
Single motherhood is a reality for a lot of women in my age group and the time difficulties in their lives are universal.
...I feel as though I made a face and the wind changed, and now I have to go through life grimacing in this horrible way.
I can't imagine writing a screenplay where I didn't feel deeply connected at some kind of visceral level to the material.
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
The writers secret is not inspiration - for it is never clear where it comes from - it is his stubbornness, his patience.
If you read to your kids you'll make readers out of them, partly because they'll associate reading with good parent time.
I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.
If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out.