Blank Quotes - Page 17

• If we were sensible we would seek death - the same blissful blank which we enjoyed before we existed.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Sensible, Enjoyed, Ifs

  "Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy" edited by S. T. Joshi, (p. 71), 2006.

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• There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly-entered road of apprenticeship to Joe.

  Charles Dickens

  Way In Life, Expectations, Romance

  Charles Dickens (2010). “A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club): Two Novels”, p.411, Penguin

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• What avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?

  Aldo Leopold

  Maps, Wilderness, Spots

  Aldo Leopold (1968). “A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There”, p.135, Oxford University Press

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• The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank.

  Charles Darwin

  Education, School, Mean

  Charles Darwin “Charles Darwin: An Anthology”, Transaction Publishers

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• But that quickly faded, and he frowned. "You're bleeding," he said. "What happened?" Claire sighed and held up her wrist to show him the bandage. "Man, you would be so embarrassed if I said it was something else." Michael looked blank. "I'm a girl, Michael, it could have been all natural, you know. Tampons?

  Rachel Caine

  Girl, Men, Bleeding

  Rachel Caine (2007). “Midnight Alley: The Morganville Vampires”, p.84, Penguin

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• Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

  Neil Gaiman

  Jobs, Writing, Winning

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• The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words.

  Jack Kerouac

  Wisdom, Long, Pages

  Jack Kerouac (2000). “Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings”, p.83, Penguin

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• You can't edit a blank page

  Nora Roberts

  Pages, Blank Pages, Edits

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• The light struck upon the trees in the garden, making one leaf transparent and then another. One bird chirped high up; there was a pause; another chirped lower down. The sun sharpended the walls of the house, and rested like the tip of a fan upon a white blind and made a fingerprint of a shadow under the leaf by the bedroom window. The blind stirred slightly, but all within was dim and unsubstantial. The birds sang their blank melody outside.

  Virginia Woolf

  Wall, Garden, Light

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• ... I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page.

  Monique Wittig

  Fire, Teeth, Pages

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• She glanced up at him, and in that moment he pulled his wet shirt over his head. She forced her mind blank. Blank as a new sheet of paper, blank as a starless sky. He came to the fire and crouched before it. He rubbed the water from his bare arms and flicked it in the flames. She stared at the goose and sliced his drumstick carefully and thought of the blankest expression on the blankest face she could possibly imagine. It was a chilly evening; she thought about that. The goose would be delicious, they must eat as much of it as possible, they must not waste it; she thought about that.

  Kristin Cashore

  Fire, Expression, Flames

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• What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just something for other people to use and admire, or envy, despise. To nail their dreams onto like a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.

  Janet Fitch

  Beauty, Girl, Dream

  Janet Fitch (2013). “White Oleander”, p.184, Hachette UK

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• Losing Chloe had been like reading a wonderfulook only to realize that all the pages past a certain point were blank.

  Jodi Picoult

  Reading, Past, Chloe

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• These dreams reminded me that, since I wished some day to become a writer, it was high time to decide what sort of books I was going to write. But as soon as I asked myself the question, and tried to discover some subject to which I could impart a philosophical significance of infinite value, my mind would stop like a clock, my consciousness would be faced with a blank, I would feel either that I was wholly devoid of talent or perhaps that some malady of the brain was hindering its development.

  Marcel Proust

  Dream, Book, Philosophical

  Marcel Proust (2000). “In Search of Lost Time, Volume I: Swann's Way (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.251, Modern Library

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• Always it is thus with my new students, and especially with the human ones; the mind is the last muscle they train or use, and the one that they regard the least. Ask them about swordplay and they can list every blow from a duel a month old, but ask them to solve a problem or make a coherent statement and... well, I would be lucky to get more than a blank stare in return.

  Christopher Paolini

  Blow, Mind, Would Be

  Christopher Paolini (2009). “Eldest: Book Two”, p.347, Random House

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• Jazz can be a blank canvas full of possibilities.

  Barbara Januszkiewicz

  Art, Jazz, Canvas

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• Step off assuredly into the blank of your mind. Something will come to you.

  Richard Wilbur

  Mind, Crafts, Steps

  Richard Wilbur, William Butts (1990). “Conversations with Richard Wilbur”, p.109, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• "On Pat Hearne - He made money in stocks, and that made people ask him for advice. He would never give any. If they asked him point-blank for his opinion about the wisdom of their commitments he used a favorite race-track maxim of his: "You can't tell till you bet.""

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Commitment, Race, People

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• Even in dialogue, your own style rules your selection. Do not give yourself a blank check of this kind: 'I'll merely reproduce what I think a character like so-and-so would say.' You have to reproduce it in the way your literary premises dictate.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Character, Thinking

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• You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair - the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.

  Stephen King

  Girl, Eye, Writing

  Stephen King (2002). “On Writing”, p.99, Simon and Schuster

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• His examiner said severely: "Baskerville, you blank round, discursiveness is not literature."
  "The aim of literature," Baskerville replied grandly, "is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart."

  Donald Barthelme

  Heart, Fur, Literature

  "Florence Green is 81". "Come Back, Dr. Caligari". Book by Donald Barthelme, 1964.

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• It was like watching a movie being played on the blank screen of his mind; the only difference was that he did not get bored, no matter how many times he watched it.

  Faraaz Kazi

  Love, Differences, Bored

  Faraaz Kazi (2012). “Truly, Madly, Deeply!: Memoirs of a Broken Heart's First Love!”, p.72, Faraaz Kazi

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• The listeners who buy books after a reading multiply that reading; the author who realizes that he or she may be writing on a blank page but is at least not speaking to a blank wall may be encouraged by the experience, and write more.

  Alberto Manguel

  Wall, Reading, Book

  "A History of Reading". Book by Alberto Manguel, 1996.

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• There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures.

  Charles Darwin

  Long, World, Maps

  Charles Darwin, R. D. Keynes (2001). “Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary”, p.445, Cambridge University Press

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• Blank cartridges should never be used against a mob, nor should a volley be fired over the heads of the mob even if there is little danger of hurting persons in the rear. Such things will be regarded as an admission of weakness, or an attempt to bluff, and may do more harm than good.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Peace, Hurt, War

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