Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm nothing. Nothing at all without writing. Without truth, my truth, the only truth I know, it's all a gambol in the pasture without rhythm or sense.
When you're a writer, you have to have the passion and the skill and the craft. It's not just enough to have the passion. You've gotta have all three.
The aim of every authentic artist is not to conform to the history of art, but to release himself from it in order to replace it with his own history.
His subject is the "Origin of Species," & not the origin of Organization; & it seems a needless mischief to have opened the latter speculation at all.
The American way was for commerce, personal relationships, and religion to be voluntary. No one was forced to participate in something he didn't want.
Of course you keep telling yourself there's something to be learned from everything, and growing old shouldn't be that hard. That's the general drift.
I don't know a whole lot about symbolism. There seems to me to be a potential danger in symbolism. I feel more comfortable with metaphors and similes.
We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.
The deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer...No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind.
The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses, which are always thoroughly human, even if despicable.
I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.
You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do.
I lost my father when I was 19, so the majority of my life has been under this cloud, and I have been full of the intention to find out what happened.
You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.
If the landscape changes, then I don't know who I am either. The landscape is a refracted autobiography. As it disappears you lose your sense of self.
Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above our fellow-creatures, the brutes, in this lower world.
far away from my country I would be like those trees they chop down at Christmastime, those poor rootless pines that last a little while and then die.
They could not understand the advantage of living contrary to their inclinations in this world in order to enjoy a hypothetical well-being in another.
I feel that my life and therefore my writing accept the possibility of all the mystery. Everything we don't know; everything that can possibly happen.
You would give your life for your little baby. It's not the same when you are in a sexual relationship unless you feel that you are loved as you love.
Everybody seized upon a bit of the beast. The Sultan claimed the liver, which, when dried and powdered, is worth twice its weight in gold as medicine.
Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.
Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are... Sex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God.
If you weren't around, I'd probably be someplace way the hell off. In the woods or some goddamn place. You're the only reason I'm around, practically.
I wake up every morning knowing how ridiculously lucky I am to be able to do what I love for a living, and that sense of wonder never, ever wears off.
My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.
As writers, we can do whatever we want to. We're only limited by our imaginations. What an amazing, incredible time to be alive. How lucky we all are.
I actually don't think of whiteness and heterosexuality as 'the norm'. Maybe there are people who still do but none of them are close friends of mine.
The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.
I just think it's a great world to tell stories in, to tell cool stories: money, sex, fame, and scandal. Those are great subject matters to work with.
'Monty Python And The Holy Grail' is a hugely important movie to me. I remember watching it for the first time on cable when I was about 13 years old.
Let there be no mincing of comparisons in this assertion. Not Turner, not Monet, painted so directly blinding shafts of sunlight as has this Spaniard.
James Brown was the Monday-to-Friday guy. He was the hardest man in show business. He was like your dad and your uncle: He showed up, and he hit hard.
I go through periods listening to specific types of music. Because I'm a musician, listening to music is... it's a bit like work for me. A little bit.
Standardization, instead of individualization. Cheap books, instead of private press editions. Active literature, instead of passive leather bindings.
At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don't understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.
Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.
While I was in junior high, I wrote an entire essay in rhyme about manufacturing in New York State. In high school, I won a Scholastic poetry contest.
Poets and novelists and playwrights make themselves, against terrible resistances, give over what the rest of us keep safely locked within our hearts.
What helps me when someone puts me down or aims to offend me is to not take what they say personally. I try my best to not internalize their comments.
If it's red, French, costs too much, and tastes like the water that's left in the vase after the flowers have died and rotted, it's probably Burgundy.
[Bob] Dylan, like Johnny Cash and only a handful of others, simultaneously embodies the American dream and the harsh wake-up call that comes after it.
No matter how flawed someone else may be, that doesn't give us the right to be less than we are, does it? We are decent people and we repay our debts.
I never want to love someone like that, so much that there would be no room left for myself, so much that I wouldn't be able to survive if he left me.
Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough.
Every believer is an anarchist at heart. True believers would rather see governments topple and history rewritten than scuff the cover of their faith.
Tell me a story, Pew. What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There’s no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending.
Nothing can be forgotten. Nothing can be lost. The universe itself is one vast memory system. Look back and you will find the beginnings of the world.
The Humans is a laugh-and-cry book. Troubling, thrilling, puzzling, believable and impossible. Matt Haig uses words like a tin-opener. We are the tin.