Writings Quotes (page 222)
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Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at Antony and Cleopatra; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.
Virginia Woolf
Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmoniously above the willow. May came too soon, and suddenly unable to bear walls, he wandered the campus at all hours through starlight and rain.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
We live" writes Pursewarden somewhere, "lives based upon selected fictions. Our view of reality is conditioned by our position in space and time - not by our personalities as we like to think. Thus every interpretation of reality is based upon a unique position. Two paces east or west and the whole picture is changed.
Lawrence Durrell
Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind – they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death.
Stephen King
You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
James Baldwin
Timothy's eyes followed the straight back, the high shoulders, and the crisp white hair out of the door and out of his life -- a man, so he was to write years later, the like of whom he was never to met again, "because he was the only man I ever knew who could use words like honour, duty, and responsibility without making me feel like throwing up."
Hugh MacLennan
I really am going to meet Forster: I thought I shouldn't, but apparently the old boy E.M.F. is saying with remembered my name & I am bid to John Hewitt's at 8 tomorrow. Shall I ask him if he's a homo? It's the only thing I really want to know about him, you see. I don't even care why he packed up writing.
Philip Larkin
Trout sat back and thought about the conversation. He shaped it into a story, which he never got around to writing until he was an old, old man. It was about a planet where the language kept turning into pure music, because the creatures there were so enchanted by sounds. Words became musical notes. Sentences became melodies. They were useless as conveyors of information, because nobody knew or cares what the meanings of words were anymore. So leaders in government and commerce, in order to...
Kurt Vonnegut