#writing
168 quotes
“started with distillation.”
“Well, between Scotch and nothin', I suppose I'd take Scotch. It's the nearest thing to good moonshine I can find. As quoted in the National Observer”
“Faulkner Without Fanfare”
“Why that's a hundred miles away. That's a long way to go just to eat. On declining invitation to White House dinner honoring Nobel laureates, as quoted in Life magazine”
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice and lying and greed. If you, not just you in this room tonight, but in all the thousands of other rooms like this one about the world today and tomorrow and next week, will do this ... as individuals, men and women, you will change the earth; in one generation all the Napoleons and Hitlers and Caesars and Mussolinis and Stalins and all the other tyrants who want power and aggrandizement, and the simple politicians and time”
“It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books; I wish I had enough sense to see ahead thirty years ago, and like some of the Elizabethans, not signed them. It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: He made the books and he died. Letter to Malcolm Cowley (February 11, 1949), quoted in William Faulkner: A Critical Essay (1970) by Martin Jarrett”
“Be scared. You can't help that. But don't be afraid. Ain't nothing in the woods going to hurt you unless you corner it, or it smells that you are afraid. A bear or a deer, too, has got to be scared of a coward the same as a brave man has got to be. "The Bear" in The Saturday Evening Post”
“For the holy are susceptible too to evil, even as you and I, signori; they too are helpless before sin without God's aid... and the holy can be fooled by sin as quickly as you or I, signori. Quicker, because they are holy. "Mistral"”
“Setting: Chickasaw land; fictional Yoknapatawpha County , based on Lafayette County, Mississippi . Author nationality: American. First published: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ( Curtis Publishing Company ).”
“Man was not made to sweat.”
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. Moments of Being (1976)”
“Language is wine upon the lips. The Waves (1931)”
“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world. Three Guineas (1938)”
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters. A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 3”
“I am rooted, but I flow. The Waves (1931)”
“Books are the mirrors of the soul. Between the Acts (1941)”
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 1”
“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 4”
“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 4”
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 1”
“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. As quoted in Grace Notes (1989) by Rita Dove”
“The fully realized presence of the haunting is both a major incumbent of the narrative and sleight of hand. One of its purposes is to keep the reader preoccupied with the nature of the incredible spirit world while being supplied a controlled diet of the incredible political world. … Here I wanted the compelling confusion of being there as they (the characters) are; suddenly, without comfort or succor from the”
“Black women write differently from white women. This is the most marked difference of all those combinations of black and white, male and female. It's not so much that women write differently from men, but that black women write differently from white women. Black men don't write very differently from white men. Black Women Writers at Work (1983) by Claudia Tate”
“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”
“Writing to me is an advanced and slow form of reading. If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. Morrison said this in her talk at the annual meeting of the Ohio Arts Council in Cincinnati in September 1981. Variants, unsourced: If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
“Was there anything so loathsome as a wilfully innocent man? Hardly. An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines. Tar Baby”
“At some point in life the world 's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens”
“Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about "us"; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us. Commencement address at Barnard College (May 1979) as quoted in Ms. magazine”
“There is really nothing more to say”
“Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. The Bluest Eye (1969) First lines”
“In the heart of the wilderness, a man finds his true self.”
“The river is like life: it flows endlessly toward the sea.”
“Power corrupts even the noblest of intentions.”
“The earth knows no masters, only those who work it.”
“Civilization and barbarism are two faces of the same coin.”
“The jungle demands everything from those who enter it.”
“The llanero is free because he lives under the open sky.”
“Nature in the tropics is both generous and cruel.”
“In the immensity of the landscape, man discovers his own smallness.”
“The plains teach man to be patient.”
“Put you in this pickle. Ch. 5.”
“The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works. Ch. 4.”
“By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece. Ch. 4.”
“Which I have earned with the sweat of my brows. Ch. 4.”
“Y así, del poco dormir y del mucho leer, se le secó el cerebro, de manera que vino a perder el juicio. Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. Ch. 1 (tr. Samuel Putnam).”
“They can expect nothing but their labour for their pains.”
“I was so free with him as not to mince the matter.”
“...estás en tu casa, donde eres señor della, como el rey de sus alcabalas. You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne.”
“Acontece tener un padre un hijo feo y sin gracia alguna, y el amor que le tiene le pone una venda en los ojos para que no vea sus faltas, antes las juzga por discreciones y lindezas y las cuenta a sus amigos por agudezas y donaires. A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty.”
“You can't make facts fit the rules, it is the other way round. The rules have to be adopted to fit the facts.”
“We all believe in the regulations, but you have to know how to interpret them.”
“When you start having bad luck, there isn't an end to it.”
“Every thing is done halfway in Peru, and that is why everything goes wrong.”
“He is always furious, on account of what he finds out or what he doesn't find out.”
“Lima frightened him, it was too big, you could lose yourself in it and never find your way home; the people on the street were total strangers.”
“It is easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it.”
“Political correctness is the enemy of freedom because it rejects honesty and authenticity. We have to tackle it as the distortion of the truth. Interview , El País , 27/02/2018”
“Mario Vargas Llosa compara al peronismo con los nazis y lo culpa de destruir Argentina”
“Ahora tenemos un peronismo que es todo: es la extrema derecha, es el centro, es el centro izquierda, es la extrema izquierda, es la democracia y es el terrorismo, es la demagogia y es la insensatez... Todo es el peronismo... Now we have Peronism that is everything: it's the far right and its the center, it's left centrist and is also extreme leftist, it is democracy and is also terrorism, its demagogy is also insanity...Peronism is everything.”
“The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labor. What Is To Be Done? (1886) Chap. XXXVIII, as translated in The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï (1902) edited by Nathan Haskell Dole, p. 259”
“Six feet of land was all that he needed. How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
“I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back. Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence”
“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral. Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence”
“Where Love Is, God Is”
“I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and government orders. My Religion (1884), as translated in The Human Experience : Contemporary American and Soviet Fiction and Poetry (1989) by the Quaker US/USSR Committee”
“Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth. Only deeds of truth, by introducing light into the conscience of each individual, can dissolve the cohesion of error, and detach men one by one from the mass united together by the cohesion of error. My Religion (1884), Ch. 12”
“My Religion (1884), Ch. 8 В чем моя вера?”
“...никогда Христос ... ни одним словом не утверждал личное воскресение и бессмертие личности за гробом... Never did Christ utter a single word attesting to a personal resurrection and a life beyond the grave.”
“The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth. Sevastopol in May (1855), Ch. 16”
“A NOTE TO THOSE GROWNUPS WHO MIGHT READ THIS BOOK TO CHILDREN”
“I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing … Silence … Waves.”
“I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and whom at other times I forget; who remains calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die. "I am not I", from Lorca and Jiménez: Selected Poems , chosen and translated by Robert Bly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), p. 77”
“Si os dan papel pautado, escribid por el otro lado”
“If they give you ruled paper, write the other way. As quoted in the epigraph in Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury ; Susie Salmon also uses this quote in The Lovely Bones , and Daniel Quinn published a book in 2007 with the title If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways”
“Dynamic ecstasy is absolute romanticism , absolute heroism . And here I return to my point. From my point of view, after the catastrophe which we feel and think is universal, a catastrophe resulting from an excess of useless dynamism of useless progress, of useless realism, of useless technology, after this an unattainable democracy is to be reached through the conception and realization of a new romanticism. "Heroic Reason", as translated by H. R. Hays, in Selected Writings of Juan Ramon Jimenez (1957) edited by Eugenio Florit, p. 231.”
“Poetry and Literature”
“Back of my forehead I feel tonight A whole sky full of stars. Under a western moon. Life is indeed lovely! "Western Moon" in Canción (1935).”
“Nostalgia aguda, infinita, terrible, de lo que tengo. Sharp nostalgia, infinite And terrible, for what I already possess!”
“There is no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple.”
“Life is a continuous process of arriving.”
“A writer is not only a person who writes, but also someone who reads and lives.”
“The memory keeps what the heart wants to keep.”
“Every man must find his own path, no matter how difficult.”
“Writing is like making love: one must give oneself completely.”
“I know that love is the only thing that saves us from the abyss. Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966)”
“Encyclopedic article on Jorge Amado on Wikipedia”
“song of the cacao region”
“O cheiro de cravo, a cor de canela, eu vim de longe vim ver Gabriela. Colour of cinnamon, Clove's sweet smell, I've come a long way To see Gabrielle.”
“I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence. The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)”
“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the oppressed. The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Ch. 15”
“The mountains are the heart of a country. Travels with Charley (1962)”
“No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a New England town. Travels with Charley (1962)”
“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)”
“Man itself is as mixed as the clouds, as disharmonious as the sea. The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Ch. 15”
“A sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ. Travels with Charley (1962)”
“Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other. Of Mice and Men (1937), Ch. 1”
“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Of Mice and Men (1937), title reference to Robert Burns”
“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. Travels with Charley (1962)”
“Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven firstborn!”
“Free will is the foundation of human dignity.”
“To know that which before us lies in daily life is the prime wisdom.”
“The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.”
“Awake, arise or be forever fallen!”
“A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.”
“What hath night to do with sleep?”
“They also serve who only stand and wait.”
“Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
“Negroes Are Anti”
“The American Dream and the American Negro”
“Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?”
“Doom and glory of knowing who you are”
“One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found”
“Despair is a sin. I believe that. It is easy to be bleak about the human race, but there are people who have proved to me that we can be better than we are. Interview with M. S. Handler of the New York Times (3 June 1964), quoted in 'Demand For Presidential Lead On U.S. Race Issue', The Times (4 June 1963), p. 10”
“The Cross of Redemption”
“As Much Truth As One Can Bear”
“The Creative Process”
“are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.”
“My choice is the old world”
“The Atlantic Monthly, March 1873”
“Cats and monkeys”
“Deep experience is never peaceful. Madame de Mauves , Galaxy Magazine (February/March 1874), ch. V, reprinted in A Passionate Pilgrim (1875) and later in The Madonna of the Future and Other Tales (1879) and the New York Edition of James' works, vol. 13”
“It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe. Letter to Charles Eliot Norton”
“The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination... To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master. Letter to Charles Eliot Norton”
“Everything about Florence seems to be coloured with a mild violet, like diluted wine. Letter to Henry James Sr.”
“I haven't a creature to talk to...How in Boston, when the evening arrives, and I am tired of reading, and know it would be better to do something else, can I go to the theater? I have tried it, ad nauseam. Likewise calling. Upon whom?" Letter to William James”
“Essays in Criticism by Matthew Arnold ,”
“[of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones ] [it is] like a vast episode in a sermon preached by a grandly humorous divine; and however we may be entertained by the way, we must not forget that our ultimate duty is to be instructed. An early critical review, North American Review”
“Comments on The Lifted Veil with a motto for it used in the "Cabinet Edition" of her works (1878), in a letter to John Blackwood (28 February 1873), published in George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals (1885), Vol. 4”
“Apropos of the " The Lifted Veil ," I think it will not be judicious to reprint it at present. I care for the idea which it embodies, and which justifies its painfulness. A motto which I wrote on it yesterday perhaps is a sufficient indication of that idea:”
“'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands : He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio. Stradivarius”
“An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. Felix Holt, the Radical”
“I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. Felix Holt, the Radical”
“ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit”
“If art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally. Letter to Charles Bray”
“My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy . Letter to Charles Bray”
“Unsigned article reprinted in The Essays of “George Eliot.” Complete.”
“The real drama of Evangelicalism”
“Okay, I won't be famous until tomorrow,”
“I would like for my books to have been recognized posthumously, at least in capitalist countries, where they turn you into a kind of merchandise. p. 336”
“Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. p. 325”
“Interviewer: You describe seemingly fantastic events in such minute detail that it gives them their own reality. Is this something you have picked up from journalism? García Márquez: That's a journalistic trick which you can also apply to literature. If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty”
“In the end all books are written for your friends. The problem after writing One Hundred Years of Solitude was that now I no longer know whom of the millions of readers I am writing for; this upsets and inhibits me. It's like a million eyes are looking at you and you don't really know what they think. p. 322”
“It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination. p. 322”
“I decline to accept the end of man.”
“The Cataclysm of Damocles”
“Santiago Nasar had often told me that the smell of closed”
“...a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth ... The Autumn of the Patriarch . HarperCollins. 2006 [1976]. p. 254. ISBN 978”
“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut”
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Attributed six-word story”
“But life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose. The Sun Also Rises (1926)”
“In every action, consider the end”
“A man can be destroyed but not defeated. The Old Man and the Sea (1952)”
“All good books have one thing in common: they are truer than if they had really happened”
“Write drunk, edit sober”
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them”
“There is no friend as loyal as a book”
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. A Farewell to Arms (1929), Ch. 34”
“How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be "American" before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries? Letter to Barrett Wendell”
“Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone. "Xingu" (1911), from Xingu and Other Stories”
“I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, & consequently suggests more tugging, & pain, & diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie. Letter to John Hugh Smith (12 February 1909), published in The Letters of Edith Wharton”
“After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them & invent others that (one is fairly sure) don't exist”
“No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity. "The House of Mirth" (1905), ch. X, pg. 69”
“He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which his coming produced. "The House of Mirth" (1905), bk. 1, ch. 6”
“The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it. The House of Mirth (1905), bk.1, ch. 6”
“A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue. "The Other Two," ch. 1, from The Descent of Man and Other Stories”
“It was part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counselor, that wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissues. Sanctuary , (1903) part II, ch. IV”
“Vesalius in Zante”