Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.
Any novel of importance has a purpose. If only the "purpose" be large enough, and not at outs with the passional inspiration.
I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum liberty to every individual?
Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus? But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us all the time.
If you try to nail anything down, in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail.
How ravished one could be without ever being touched. Ravished by dead words become obscene and dead ideas become obsessions.
But why? Why do you need prophets to tell you how you ought to live? Why do you need anyone to tell you how you ought to live
In fact, of course, there is no secret knowledge; no one knows anything that can't be found on a shelf in the public library.
It's difficult to talk to people... I walk into a room and I'm Danielle Steel, and whatever I say is going to be taken apart.
The entire ball game, in terms of both the exam and life, was what you gave attention to vs. what you willed yourself to not.
I knew my limitations and the limitations of the courts I played on, and adjusted thusly. I was at my best in bad conditions.
What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.
Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you
Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.
And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them -- like 'em better sometimes.
We are several people fitted inside each other. Chinese boxes. Our bodies are the outside box. Or the inside one if you like.
Once you establish a look, and once everybody recognizes that look as your look, you never have to think about fashion again.
In 2008 we came perilously close to killing money, exposing in the process how out of date money's infrastructure has become.
When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.
There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.
There is only one thing for a man to do who is married to a woman who enjoys spending money, and that is to enjoy earning it.
Nothing pleases a woman quite so well as to look so sweet that a man wants to kiss her, and then abuse him for his impudence.
Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.
There is no such thing as luck. It's a fancy name for being always at our duty, and so sure to be ready when good time comes.
American humor ... is not subtle. It is something that makes you laugh the moment you hear it, you have not to think a scrap.
Who is ever adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at them because they don't.
If you ever meet someone who cannot understand why solitary confinement is considered punishment, you have met a misanthrope.
Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.
He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love.
"Things have a life of their own," the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. "It's simply a matter of waking up their souls."
She would say, "Someone should invent something to do with things you cannot use anymore but that you still cannot throw out.
Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth; we are saved by making the future present to ourselves.
... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.
The man or country that fights priestcraft and priests is to my mind striking deeper for freedom than can be struck anywhere.
A human act once set in motion flows on forever to the great account. Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we are.
There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.
Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all.
I do so hope he plays us 'The Rains of Castamere.' It has been an hour. I've forgotten how it goes -- Olenna Tyrell, the HBIC
I work for two years on a book and it comes out and two days later I've got my first e-mail: When is the next one coming out?
Never apologise for not being someone else. You're bound to find something you're good at, even if it's only writing stories.
I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! I mean they're just shoes... let it go!
My tastes in music tend to favor anything my kids don't like, out of natural antipathy amplified by a sort of malicious glee.
I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself
In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.
Squeeze marriage as much as you like, you will never extract anything from it but fun for bachelors and boredom for husbands.
Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist.
I think I've been rather reasonable about this whole situation." "How do you figure?" "They are still breathing, aren't they?
I'm sorry about the dinner." "Best date ever. Well, until people died and vampires showed up. But before that it was awesome.
The good doctor put a spoon of tea into my honey." "You're drinking tea a honey badger made," Jim said. "What did you expect?
Grandpa?" Declan raised his eyebrows. "We keep him in the shed out back," Jack said helpfully. "So he doesn't eat dog brains.