Connie Willis Quotes

Quotes about:

• I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list, although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible.

  Connie Willis

  Lists, Groceries, Heard

  17 Copy quote

• And every place and time an author writes about is imaginary, from Oz to Raymond Chandler's L.A. to Dickens's London.

  Connie Willis

  Writing, London, Imaginary

  14 Copy quote

• I have great faith in the future of books - no matter what form they may take - and of science fiction.

  Connie Willis

  Book, Fiction, May

  7 Copy quote

• I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie).

  Connie Willis

  Dames, Plot, Christie

  44 Copy quote

• Writers are too neurotic to ever be happy.

  Connie Willis

  Writing, Neurotic

  "Gratitude" by Abigail Bereola, therumpus.net. October 08, 2013.

  6 Copy quote

• Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms.

  Connie Willis

  Thinking, Elements, Literature

  7 Copy quote

• Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?

  Connie Willis

  Eye, Thinking, Bread Pudding

  Connie Willis (2010). “Bellwether”, p.119, Spectra

  10 Copy quote

• When you're a writer, the question people always ask you is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Writers hate this question. It's like asking Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, "Where do you get your leeches?" You don't get ideas. Ideas get you.

  Connie Willis

  Queens, Hate, Ideas

  Connie Willis (2011). “Impossible Things”, p.89, Spectra

  12 Copy quote

• You'd help if you could, wouldn't you, boy?" I said. "It's no wonder they call you man's best friend. Faithful and loyal and true, you share in our sorrows and rejoice with us in our triumphs, the truest friend we ever have known, a better friend than we deserve. You have thrown in your lot with us, through thick and thin, on battlefield and hearthrug, refusing to leave your master even when death and destruction lie all around. Ah, noble dog, you are the furry mirror in which we see our better selves reflected, man as he could be, unstained by war or ambition, unspoilt by-

  Connie Willis

  Dog, War, Lying

  Connie Willis (2009). “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, p.16, Bantam

  9 Copy quote

• To do something for someone or something you loved-England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history-wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.

  Connie Willis

  Dog, Sacrifice, Cost

  7 Copy quote

• Don't they know science doesn't work like that? You can't just order scientific breakthroughs. They happen when you are looking at something you've been working on for years and suddenly see a connection you never noticed before, or when you're looking for something else altogether. Sometimes they even happen by accident. Don't they know you can't get a scientific breakthrough just because you want one?

  Connie Willis

  Order, Years, Connections

  Connie Willis (2010). “Bellwether”, p.80, Spectra

  4 Copy quote

• You shouldn't be looking for the secret to making people follow fads, you should be looking for the secret to making them think for themselves. Because that's what science is all about.

  Connie Willis

  Thinking, People, Secret

  Connie Willis (1996). “Futures Imperfect”, Doubleday Books

  4 Copy quote

• A Grand Design we couldn't see because we were part of it. A Grand Design we only got occasional, fleeting glimpses of. A Grand Design involving the entire course of history and all of time and space that, for some unfathomable reason, chose to work out its designs with cats and croquet mallets and penwipers, to say nothing of the dog. And a hideous piece of Victorian artwork. And us.

  Connie Willis

  Dog, Cat, Space

  Connie Willis (2009). “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, p.479, Bantam

  9 Copy quote

• One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.

  Connie Willis

  Dog, Morning, Past

  Connie Willis (2009). “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, p.210, Bantam

  3 Copy quote

• There are moments when rather than reforming the human race I'd like to abandon it altogether and go become, say, one of Dr. O'Reilly's macaques, which have to have more sense.

  Connie Willis

  Race, Drs, Moments

  Connie Willis (1996). “Futures Imperfect”, Doubleday Books

  3 Copy quote

• Barbie's one of those fads whose popularity makes you lose all faith in the human race.

  Connie Willis

  Race, Barbie, Fads

  Connie Willis (1997). “Bellwether”, Spectra

  3 Copy quote

• People will buy anything at jumble sales,' I said. 'At the Evacuated Children Charity Fair a woman bought a tree branch that had fallen on the table.

  Connie Willis

  Children, People, Tree

  3 Copy quote

• The entire range of human experience is present in a church choir, including, but not restricted to jealousy, revenge, horror, pride, incompetence (the tenors have never been on the right note in the entire history of church choirs, and the basses have never been on the right page), wrath, lust and existential despair.

  Connie Willis

  Revenge, Pride, Wrath

  3 Copy quote

• Shakespeare put no children in his plays for a reason," Sir Godfrey muttered, glaring at Alf and Binnie. "You're forgetting the Little Prince," Polly reminded him. "Who he had the good sense to kill off in the second act," snapped Sir Godfrey.

  Connie Willis

  Children, Play, Littles

  4 Copy quote

• Management cares about only one thing. Paperwork. They will forgive almost anything else - cost overruns, gross incompetence, criminal indictments - as long as the paperwork's filled out properly. And in on time.

  Connie Willis

  Filled Out, Long, Forgiving

  Connie Willis (2010). “Bellwether”, p.140, Spectra

  3 Copy quote

• It was about a girl who helps an ugly old woman who turns out to be a good fairy in disguise. Inner values versus shallow appearances.

  Connie Willis

  Girl, Ugly, Helping

  Connie Willis (2010). “Bellwether”, p.54, Spectra

  3 Copy quote

• I was on a walking tour of Oxford colleges once with a group of bored and unimpressable tourists. They yawned at Balliol's quad, T.E. Lawrence's and Churchill's portraits, and the blackboard Einstein wrote his E=mc2 on. Then the tour guide said, 'And this is the Bridge of Sighs, where Lord Peter proposed (in Latin) to Harriet,' and everyone suddenly came to life and began snapping pictures. Such is the power of books.

  Connie Willis

  Latin, Book, College

  3 Copy quote

• That's what the movies do. They don't entertain us, they don't send the message: 'We care.' They give us lines to say, they assign us parts: John Wayne, Theda Bara, Shirley Temple, take your pick.

  Connie Willis

  Giving, Care, Lines

  Connie Willis (2009). “Remake”, p.65, Spectra

  3 Copy quote

• No," I said finally. "Slowness in Answering," she said into the handheld. "When's the last time you slept?" "1940" I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering.

  Connie Willis

  Lasts, Problem, Said

  Connie Willis (2009). “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, p.18, Bantam

  3 Copy quote

• Finch picked up one of the ancient fax-mags and brought it over to me. "I don't need anything to read," I said. "I'll just sit here and eavesdrop along with you." "I thought you might sit on the mag," he said. "It's extremely difficult to get soot out of chintz.

  Connie Willis

  Fax, Needs, Might

  Connie Willis (2009). “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, p.24, Bantam

  3 Copy quote

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