Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant.
She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.
Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
There's just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to 'em. Even then, they ain't worth the bullet it takes to shoot 'em.
The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.
Maybe this is pathetic, but I still dread producing a book that doesn't earn back its advance. I hate obligations that are financially foggy.
Off with your hat, as the flag goes by! And let the heart have its say; you're man enough for a tear in your eye that you will not wipe away.
Ah woe is me, through all my daysWisdom and wealth I both have got,And fame and name and great men's praise;But Love, ah! Love I have it not.
When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager than the man, If not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.
It is only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a supreme being, that our calamities can be borne in the manner which becomes a man.
For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who "believe and tremble" has one.
The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel - especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy.
I'm sorry to say that far worse things have happened and the literature of the Holocaust is a witness to the capacity of the novel as a form.
They're fanatics. It's like expecting humanity from a falling rock. It's not going to have a fit of compassion and not crack your skull open.
I’d give him a cup of coffee and a big helping of a knuckle sandwich. Generosity was a virtue and I was in the mood to be extremely virtuous.
Juke glanced into her cup before tipping it down to her mouth. "Screw you!" "Now come on, sugar, you know I don't swing that way." "Whatever!
Yes I can,” Curran snarled. “Listen: this is me telling you what you will not do.” I raised the cookbook and tapped him on the nose. Bad cat.
Sometimes a book influences me because it winds me up. There'll be something that gets under my skin and makes me think that I can do better.
That wild beast which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free.
Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.
Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that's gripping the nation!
If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!
Well, think back," said Harry. "Have you ever let it slip that you'd like to go out in public with the words 'My Sweetheart' round your neck?
He felt even angrier that Dumbledore was showing signs of weakness. He had no business being weak when Harry wanted to rage and storm at him.
She sticks her tongue out at me and crosses her eyes. Not sure why that made me want to do her in the backseat, but to each his own, I guess.
I must confess. Of all of the brotherhood, he was the one I loved first and he remains the one I love the most. For me, he is just the...one.
Fine. If I can't have you, then you do the taking. Have all of me, part of me, a small piece, whatever you want. Just please, have something.
Butch put his hand on his roommate's nape and murmured, "I'll do the saving until you get your head back, how about that? I'll keep you safe.
The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.
Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt.
Real rebels are rarely anything but second rate outside their rebellion; the drain of time and temper is ruinous to any other accomplishment.
I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.
There is an atmosphere of spiritual effort here. No other city is quite like it. I wake early, often at 5 o'clock, and start writing at once.
We are an unfortunate priest-ridden race and always were and always will be tell the end of the chapter.... A priest-ridden Godforsaken race.
However you disguise slavery, it is slavery still. Its chains, though wreathed with roses, not only fasten on the body but rivet on the mind.
...being written by someone who might not quite understand the subconscious nuance of the character leaves us in varying degrees of flatness.
There is a time on every job where you say, screw caution. I'm not foolhardy. I'm not stupid. But sometimes you have to be the battering ram.
We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.
All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped in blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.
Every few years we disappear, Zoey. All our cells are replaced by others. Not a single bit of me is the same as when I was last in this room.
I get a lot of letters, mostly from family members who have been affected by cancer rather than young people themselves. I reply to them all.
I grew up in a lot of different homes when I was younger: my parents rented trailers and small, boxy houses set high on cement block pillars.
I had some trepidation about working with someone else, especially a family member. You don't want work to affect your personal relationship.
I won't let that night ruin you forever." But it did, it broke me into a million pieces and blew them away in the wind, like crumbled leaves.
If you tell someone a secret, and ask them to keep it secret, you are asking them to display a discretion you are unable to display yourself.
It is possible, you know, to drift off to an unknown world and find happiness there. Maybe even more happiness than you've ever known before.
I move between the two: I write an adult novel, and then I write a children's book. I quite enjoy that. It's a nice change of pace each time.
Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.
I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour.
There are normal hours, and then there are invalid hours, where time stalls and slips, where life---real life---seems to exist at one remove.