Way Quotes - Page 11

• Sometimes language gets in the way of the story's feelings. The reader finds himself experiencing the language of the story rather than the story. The words sit there on the page like coins, with their own opacity, as though they're there for their own sake. "A man goes into a phone booth, stirring coins in his palm." "Stirring" is such an obviously selected word. You can feel the writer looking for the word as he sat at the typewriter.

  Leonard Michaels

  Men, Typewriters, Phones

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• Never read bad stuff if you're an artist; it will impair your own game. I don't know if you ever played competitive tennis, but you learn not to watch bad tennis; it messes up your game. Art's the same way.

  James Lee Burke

  Art, Reading, Games

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• O Lord, may I never want to look good. O Jesus, may I always read it all: out loud and the very way it should be. May I never look at the other findings until I have come to my own true conclusions: May I care for the least of the young: and become aware of the one poem that each may have written; may I be aware of what each thing is, delighted with form, and wary of the false comparison; may I never use the word "brilliant."

  Theodore Roethke

  Jesus, Teaching, Use

  Theodore Roethke, Carolyn Kizer (2013). “On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose”, p.134, Copper Canyon Press

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• Decision by democratic majority vote is a fine form of government, but it's a stinking way to create.

  Lillian Hellman

  Teaching, Majority Vote, Government

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• The only thing I can say that is not bullshit is that you do have to learn to write in a way that you would learn to play the violin. Everybody seems to think that you should be able to turn on the faucet one day and out will come the novel. I think for most people it's just practice, practice, practice, that sense of just learning your instrument until - when you have an idea on the violin, you don't have to translate it into violin-speak anymore - the language is your own. It's not something you can think your way into, or outsmart. you've just got to do it.

  Kevin Canty

  Writing, Thinking, Practice

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• Let me tell you about my day. I get up at 8 o'clock in the morning. At 8:30 am, I leave the house and I arrive at my office at 8:37. I stay in the office until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I get in my Porsche and I'm home at 2:03 because the one-way streets make it faster for me to drive. And between 8:36 am and 2 pm, I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.

  Thomas Harris

  Morning, Home, Writing

  "Will Hannibal the Cannibal eat Hollywood?" by Nikki Finke, www.cnn.com. June 4, 1999.

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• Death of the Father would deprive literature of many of its pleasures. If there is no longer a Father, why tell stories? Doesn't every narrative lead back to Oedipus? Isn't storytelling always a way of searching for one's origin, speaking one's conflicts with the Law, entering into the dialectic of tenderness and hatred?

  Roland Barthes

  Father, Oedipus, Law

  Roland Barthes (2012). “How to Live Together: Novelistic Simulations of Some Everyday Spaces”, p.190, Columbia University Press

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• I get very tense working, so I often have to get up and wander around the house. It is very bad on my stomach. I have to be mad to be working well anyway, and then I am mad about the way things are going on the page in addition. My ulcer flourishes and I have to chew lots of pills. When my work is going well, I am usually sort of sick.

  William H. Gass

  Mad, Sick, House

  William H. Gass, Theodore G. Ammon (2003). “Conversations with William H. Gass”, p.34, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.

  Herman Melville

  Book, Writing, Doors

  Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle, Hershel Parker (1988). “Moby Dick, Or The Whale: Volume 6, Scholarly Edition”, p.630, Northwestern University Press

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• Today's Father Day and we're giving you a tie, it's not much you know, it's just our way of showing you, you're a regular guy.

  Groucho Marx

  Funny, Fathers Day, Humor

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• You put me in a race where there's a lot on the line, especially when people tell me 'you can't win', or 'you're too small', you tell me those things and I'll find a way to prove you wrong.

  Mirinda Carfrae

  Loss, Winning, Race

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• As soon as you start publishing, you are the star and so people see you that way.

  Jeffrey Walker

  Stars, People, Blogging

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• As a songwriter, I was influenced by David Bowie - a great writer. A class above everybody in so many ways. Lennon and McCartney, of course. Class stuff. David Cousins was my favorite lyricist.

  Rick Wakeman

  Cousin, Class, Stuff

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• The word, and the concept of feminism, was a gift because it gave me a sense of identity and a way of defining how I wished to live my life.

  Betty Buckley

  Feminist, Feminism, Identity

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• Feminism has led the way in demystifying personal relations, forcefully insisting they are political to the core.

  Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

  Political, Feminism, Anti Feminist

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• I try and intellectualize a lot, which she does as well obviously. She's very determined, I am as well. I like to think that I am very loyal in the same way that she is. Bit of a feminist in the same way that she is. I will speak my mind in the same way that she does.

  Emma Watson

  Boyfriend, Kissing, Thinking

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• It's important to remember that feminism is no longer a group of organizations or leaders. It's the expectations that parents have for their daughters, and their sons, too. It's the way we talk about and treat one another. It's who makes the money and who makes the compromises and who makes dinner. It's a state of mind. It's the way we live now.

  Anna Quindlen

  Inspirational, Motivational, Daughter

  Anna Quindlen (2004). “Loud and Clear”, p.123, Random House

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• Cannot we let [children] be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make another you. One's enough.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Father, Enjoy Life

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• Children desperately need to know - and to hear in ways they understand and remember - that they're loved and valued by mom and dad.

  Gary Smalley

  Mom, Dad, Children

  Gary Smalley, John T. Trent (1992). “The Language of Love”

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• I would guess that it might have made a difference. It certainly didn't hurt us in any way. Feng shui creates a balance that I believe adds to the comfort zone of rooms and space, and that is felt by guests and residents.

  Donald Trump

  Hurt, Business, Believe

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• The tank was originally invented to clear a way for the infantry in the teeth of machine-gun fire. Now it is the infantry who will have to clear a way for the tanks.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Gun, Fire

  Winston Churchill (1986). “The Hinge of Fate”, p.528, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If you don't like the way you are, don't worry about it. You can change the way you are.

  Zig Ziglar

  Worry, Ifs

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• Sweetness and release can only taste the way they do after one deserves them.

  Carl Shapiro

  Inspirational, Running, Taste

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• Life's better now. I wouldn't do it all over again, though. It's funny how life works. Maybe it was meant to happen for many reasons, because my life in many ways richer.

  Giuliana Rancic

  Cancer, Reason, Meant To Happen

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• In a lot of ways, I was kind of crossing lines of what I thought I was comfortable doing. I had to do all this naked stuff.

  Robert Pattinson

  Careers, Acting, Naked

  "'Twilight' Star Robert Pattinson Talks About Nude Scenes In 'Little Ashes'" by Jocelyn Vena, www.mtv.com. March 16, 2009.

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