Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A work of fiction should be, for its author, a journey into the unknown, and the prose should convey the difficulties of the journey.
Rome's just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare.
The feigning sleeper can delude others he cannot delude himself. The false mystic, unfortunately, can delude both others and himself.
Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than iteself.
I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings." -from the Fox-
We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.
You can judge a leader by the size of the problem he tackles... Other people can cope with the waves, it's his job to watch the tide.
The feeling of being an underdog, not belonging, is very much me. You harbour a little feeling of resentment towards the 'upper dog'.
The love expressed between women is particular and powerful because we have had to love in order to live; love has been our survival.
It is not the place of the theatre to show the correct path, but only to offer the means by which all possible paths may be examined.
Before my eyes are many miserable scenes, the suffering of others and myself forces my hands to move. I become a machine for writing.
When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.
It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.
There are certain inessential activities-moths of precious time-and it is worse to busy yourself with the trivial than to do nothing.
Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have got to be able to light your own fire.
The rewards of the wild and the rewards of the survivor go to those who can dig deep, and, ultimately, to the guy who can stay alive.
As an author, you can't expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that's what you hope for, you shouldn't sell the rights.
I thought of America as Natalie Wood and Bob Wagner sprawled on the edge of a Hollywood swimming pool biting into the same red apple.
Freedom is sloppy. But since tyranny's the only guaranteed byproduct of those who insist on a perfect world, freedom will have to do.
But you can't kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that one thing you've never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.
Faith means that it doesn't matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.
I froze, shocked. (And don't try to clam that you did anything different the first time a government bureaucrat pulled a gun on you.)
My father was a writer; I've known a lot of children of writers - daughters and sons of writers, and it can be a hard way to grow up.
Start building a network of fellow entrepreneurs that understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty about always chasing it.
I can remember only a few of the strange and curious words now dead but living and spoken by the English people a thousand years ago.
Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction. See whether wisdom is just a lot of language.
Tongues wrangled dark at a man. He buttoned his overcoat and stood alone. In a snowstorm, red hollyberries, thoughts, he stood alone.
Sammantha: Tucker? Tucker: Does some other man call at this hour just to hear your voice? If so, give me his name, and I'll kill him.
there is every reason to fear that the State is growing ever more powerful, more autonomous, more indifferent to its own inhabitants.
A coxcomb begins by determining that his own profession is the first; and he finishes by deciding that he is the first of profession.
If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.
As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between fact and what most people call fiction is about fifteen pages in the dictionary.
Accidentally consumed five biscuits when I wasn't paying attention. Those biscuits are wily fellows - they leap in like sugary ninjas
I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies.
If the parks be "the lungs of London" we wonder what Greenwich Fair is--a periodical breaking out, we suppose--a sort of spring rash.
What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? O yes!
The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and in short you are for ever floored.
Coleridge declares that a man cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumplings, and I confess that I am of the same opinion.
I don't want to permanently damage myself! On the other hand, a couple of days off the keyboard tends to make things somewhat better.
My favourite movie is: "Dr Strangelove". (I haven't seen any films released in the past 2-5 years, I'm afraid: I don't do TV/cinema).
Enjoy the elastic present, which can accommodate as little or as much as you want to put in there. Stretch it out, live inside of it.
I've waited my whole life to be able to have body hair - but I never thought I'd have back hair. But what are you going to do, right?
I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.
I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.
Time Warner has called and they want us all back on the couch, just consuming - not producing, not sharing - and we should say, 'No.'
There are three things you need to be a good writer: you need to read a lot, you need to write a lot, and you need a lot of feedback.
Under most conditions, the best roof for your bedroom is the sky. This commonsense arrangement saves weight, time, energy, and money.
One of my favorite games when I was a kid was 'murder/suicide'. Dad would show us a photo and ask us: 'Is it a murder or a suicide ?'
One of the nastier trends in library management in recent years is the notion that libraries should be 'responsive to their patrons'.
... for centuries there has been a long and honorable tradition of women who have resisted and protested against men and their power.