Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It is a peculiar thing to believe that you know someone intimately only to find that you really do not. It is like finishing a book only to discover that you have missed several key chapters. THE LETTER Chapter 9 page 104
I like the weight, look, and feel of a book. I enjoy turning the pages, and frequently scan the spines of my many books on the wall, each title a reminder of the stored information and creative thoughts contained therein.
Before 'Giant,' I had only ever worked with Michael Greif, Michael John LaChiusa and Kate Baldwin in readings. It's really exciting to be blessed with the opportunity to work with so many I would put in the 'genius' book.
Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.
When I was little, my dad was in the Air Force. He introduced me to Neil Armstrong, and Neil Armstrong signed my moon book. I had a little moon book, which I still have somewhere, and he signed it, and he died. It's true.
The graveyard is the richest place on the surface of the earth because there you will see the books that were not published, ideas that were not harnessed, songs that were not sung, and drama pieces that were never acted.
I cannot just write a frivolous book, a la-di-da book. Everything isn't la-di-da. There is something that's going to pull you up short. I want to reassure young readers. I want to comfort them, to not fear the unexpected.
I never know what something is going to be until it emerges from the womb and you see the crown of its head and then you see it pushing its way up. So in my life if another book wants to be born it's not for me to choose.
What seems to sell books is good word-of-mouth, not promotion tours. I'm too old to believe that media promotion of a book really matters. What matters is how it will look 100 years from now, not how many copies are sold.
All in all, Tolkien fans are as varied, remarkable and marvelous as the books and the worlds that they share. They make me feel a little like a Hobbit who glimpses colourful strangers passing but has never left the Shire.
I lead a normal life and I don't assume there is anything I can impart to people. The only reason to write a book would be to make money, and I don't want to do that. To write a book would be going against how I've lived.
My dad read The Hobbit to me originally when I was young. So, it was the first imaginary landscape I ever had in my head from the written word. It gave me a passion for reading, thanks to my dad's performance of the book.
I don't read my books, I write them. Once I've finished the many years it usually takes me to write them, I can't bear to read them, because I've spent too long with them already. I'm not advertising them very well, am I?
For the true bookworm it is sometimes hard to distinguish between what one has experienced and what one has read. We know that this is odd and even a little demented. But there it is. We are uneasy in a void with no book.
Every night, I was read to. Every Friday, we were taken to the library. I always received at least one book for my birthday. I have a few of them yet. Early on, I had my own collection of books. I loved to read. Still do.
There are always patterns in everything, there are patterns in books, there are patterns in human behavior, there are patterns in success, there are patterns for everything in life. You just need to pay attention to them.
There is a huge difference between writing a book, which is a private activity I engage in with myself, and wanting to engage in overly intimate personal conversations with strangers, which I pretty much never want to do.
I decided to write the book to open the eyes of the people of how corrupt John D. Rockefeller company was and the unfair ways he used to be successful. I wanted the people to know the truth about the Standard Oil Company.
Near the centre of that State of New York lies an extensive district of country, whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys.
I was really surprised at the success of 'House of Sand and Fog,' because it is so awfully dark. Believe it or not, when writing it, I never had the word 'tragedy' in my head - I wasn't trying to write a dark book at all.
Conflict resolution,' said Nightingale. 'Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?' 'Yes, sir,' I said. 'But don't worry, they also teach us how to beat people with phone books and the ten best ways to plant evidence.
The way I create music is maybe like a painting, to compose in a more visual way. Basically it's the music that I want to hear- that's my inspiration and bottom line. I just try to get ideas from books, movies, paintings.
And if, by the end [of this book], you reckon you might still disagree with me, then I offer you this: you'll still be wrong, but you'll be wrong with a lot more panache and flair than you could possibly manage right now.
I believe in books that do not go to a ready-made public. I'm looking for readers I would like to make. To win them, to create readers rather than to give something that readers are expecting. That would bore me to death.
Time has a doomsday book, upon whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters never to be effaced.
There is a direct parallel in the way that we speak, with natural variations of pitch and volume that give full meaning to our words. This is what is missing in the words on the page of a book, and the notes on the score.
Don't think of Diana Vreeland's memoir as a book; it's more like a lunch. A bit of souffle, a glass of champagne, some green grapes - light, bubbly and slightly tart - all served up by an egocentric but inventive hostess.
I'm not one of your knockabout, knuckle-scarred, Internet-controversy-courting book critics. Occasionally I stumble into controversy accidentally, but not because I enjoy it. It's probably just because I'm a weird person.
I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.
Typically, a book is published and gets one season in the sun. Eventually, you write another book, and maybe your old books get a bump, but my books seem to keep being discovered and recommended to new people of all ages.
You can know everything that the books have to say, but ultimately it boils down to whether we do the inner work of devotion and surrender, whether we can put aside our own agendas and allow the spirit to move through us.
Remember, despite the fact that this book is being sold as a 'fantasy' novel, you must take all of the things it says extremely seriously, as they are quite important, are in no way silly, and always make sense. Rutabaga.
Two things I do well in books are sex and violence, but I don't want gratuitous sex or violence. The sex and violence are only as graphic as need be. And never included unless it furthers the plot or character development
I'm good at loving books. I'm good at loving soft bed sheets. I'm good at loving coffees and teas. I am good at loving things that can't love me back, that don't have the power to leave. And maybe, that's why I love them.
Not in this specific form. But all great cities are inhabited by ghosts. A book of this kind could probably be written about Jakarta, Manila, or London by anyone who had a feeling for the invisible truths of those places.
I love when I meet generous poets, and generous meaning nice people, who give to the poetry community, who do interviews, read other people's books, and talk about them, spread the...love, I guess. That means a lot to me.
Most people would rather not hear about the environment because it's scary, so my goal was to write something that was readable so that people would learn a lot and not be so depressed that they would throw the book away.
I like the brighter, shinier, happier comic-book material on a personal level, but I also think the best stories are told where you just don't know from page to page or moment to moment when the sucker-punches are coming.
Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch.
I received a grant from The Ford Foundation to write a book for kids about urban perception, or how people experience cities, but I kept putting off writing it. Instead I started to write what became The Phantom Tollbooth
Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way.
I'm also interviewing a guy who's just written a book about his experience living in Iraq, faced with the type of violence as he said, an unimaginable scale. And I think that the combination of that is very hard to shake.
There is interest in a crime-based reality show. With my novels, we are now editing the second book in a series about a defense lawyer whose name is Samantha Brinkman. And I am reviewing speaking engagement opportunities.
I once wrote a book on women in science. I realized when I was interviewing them that they were the equivalent of writers, or anyone else who tries to make art out of life. Through science they had reached the expressive.
I have no perspective as regards my work. One reason I put out records and books is people respond to it, and it enables you to actually see the work more clearly. It's a form of therapy for me. Sometimes abusive therapy.
The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles as never to those who do not respect themselves.
I'm incredibly restless. I read a lot of poetry. I also find myself reading the first 20 pages of everything, looking for something. And you know what? I'm usually looking for the book I'm writing. And it's not out there!
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Barontage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; . . .
Yet I'm making a book and I'm going to care immensely about what words get bound in the pages, and I want the object to look good. I won't believe in it and it won't be real to me until there's a finished book I can hold.
Read at least one book a month. This is self-serving, obviously. It's a proven fact that people who read buy more books than people who don't read. In truth, I wish you'd read ten books a month, or at least buy that many.