The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. Vladimir Nabokov A playwright must be his own audience. A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose his audience for a minute. Terence …
Category: Quotes
Jun 09
Quote of the week: May roundup
Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it. Lloyd Alexander The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. Thomas Jefferson Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food. Douglas Adams What gunpowder did for war, the printing …
May 07
Quote of the week: April roundup
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. Orson Welles, 1915-1985 He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone. Paul Theroux There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou You never have to change …
Apr 04
Quote of the week: March roundup
It’s splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your imagination and make them pop like chestnuts. Gustave Flaubert, 1821 – 1880 Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable. Louisa May Alcott, 1832 – 1888 Stories may well be lies, but …
Mar 02
Quote of the week: February roundup
Look out how you use proud words. Carl Sandburg, 1878 – 1967 Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. Isaac Asimov, 1920 – 1992 It’s an honorable profession. Homer founded it. It’s not bad company you’re in when you make your living telling stories. Stephen Ambrose, 1936 – 2002 Great is the art …
Feb 04
Quote of the week: January roundup
In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility. Joseph Conrad, 1857-1924 Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognised for some time. Samuel …
Dec 31
Quote of the week: December roundup
Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognised for some time. Samuel Butler 1835-1902 The good parts are the people who don’t make do. They’re the interesting people. Lear doesn’t make do. Peter O’Toole 1932-2013 All great …
Dec 04
Quote of the week: November roundup
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it. John Adams 1735-1826 When ideas fail, words come in very handy. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832 Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible. Doris Lessing 1919-2013 Inspiration is never genuine …
Nov 03
Quote of the week: October roundup
Writing is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public. Paulo Coelho I can’t write five words but that I change seven. Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967 You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the …
Sep 30
Quote of the week: September roundup
All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas! T. E. Lawrence, 1888-1935 The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. …