Description Quotes - Page 10

• Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'

  Salman Rushdie

  Night, World, Sometimes

  "On Censorship" by Salman Rushdie, www.newyorker.com. May 11, 2012.

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• And then it was, that grief and pain made themselves known to me as never before. Note this, because I knew the full absurdity of Fate and Fortune and Nature more truly than a human can bear to know it. And perhaps the description of this, brief as it is, may give consolation to another. The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass. The truth is, you cannot prepare anyone for this, nor convey an understanding of it through language. It must be known. And this I would wish on no one in the world.

  Anne Rice

  Pain, Grief, Fate

  Anne Rice (2011). “New Tales of the Vampires: includes Pandora and Vittorio the Vampire”, p.106, Ballantine Books

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• Again: there is nothing inherently superior about resistance. All our claims for the righteousness of resistance rest on the rightness of the claim that the resisters are acting in the name of justice. And the justice of the cause does not depend on, and is not enhanced by, the virtue of those who make the assertion. It depends first and last on the truth of a description of a state of affairs that is, truly, unjust and unnecessary.

  Susan Sontag

  Names, Justice, Acting

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.184, Macmillan

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• But, who is Death? A figure that harrows and wastes wherever and however it pleases. This is also a possible description of the Countess Bathory. Never did anyone wish so hard not to grow old; I mean, to die. That is why, perhaps, she acted and played the role of Death. Because, how can Death possibly die?

  Alejandra Pizarnik

  Mean, Wish, Roles

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• It is often said that reading is a gift, but to my mind that is an insufficient description, for the size of the gift of reading is so vast that it is difficult to see what is outside its wrapping.

  Daniel Handler

  Reading, Mind, Size

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• The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness? Nothing, except what prepares and then what destroys it.

  Andre Gide

  Men, Creation Of Man, Would Be

  "The Immoralist".

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• Sometimes words need music too. Sometimes the descriptions are not enough. Books should be written with soundtracks, like films.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Needs, Sometimes

  Terry Pratchett (2010). “Diggers: The Second Book of the Nomes”, p.183, Random House

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• But mothers lie. It's in the job description.

  John Green

  Mom, Mother, Jobs

  John Green (2008). “An Abundance of Katherines”, p.14, Penguin

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• I hate those endless descriptions of a heroine's physical attributes . . . it really bothers me how in books it seems like the only two choices are perfection or self-hatred. As if readers will only like a character who's ideal--or completely shattered.

  E. Lockhart

  Hate, Book, Character

  E. Lockhart (2016). “Ruby Oliver 1: The Boyfriend List”, p.19, Bonnier Publishing Fiction Ltd.

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• And where there is no Echo there is no description of space or love. There is only silence.

  Mark Z. Danielewski

  Echoes, Space, Silence

  Twitter post from Jul 29, 2010

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• When you realize that there's a name and a description for this condition that you thought was insanity, you've identified the problem, and now you can do something about it.

  Anthony Kiedis

  Names, Insanity, Problem

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• Was it me you were discussing?” he countered with lifted brows. “I couldn’t tell from the description you were giving. Since when am I kind, considerate, refined, and amiable?” “You’re angry,” Victoria concluded on a sigh. A low chuckle rumbled in his chest and his arms tightened, drawing her close to his leann, muscular body. “I’m not angry,” he said in a husky, gentle voice. “I’m embarrassed

  Judith McNaught

  Voice, Drawing, Giving

  Judith McNaught (2016). “Once and Always”, p.181, Simon and Schuster

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• It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description.

  Alan Watts

  Language, Hard, Available

  Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.24, Souvenir Press

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• No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshippers' description. I don't see how they could survive their own insanity. But it's not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny.

  Glen Cook

  Destiny, Insanity, Shadow

  "The White Rose". Book by Glen Cook, 1985.

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• Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law--the supreme law--was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Powerful, Law, Rights

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• Does she still love you?" "I don't think so," Magnus said dryly. "She wasn't very pleasant the last time I saw her. Of course, that could be because I've got an eighteen year-old boyfriend with a stamina rune and she doesn't." Alec sputtered. "As the person being objectified, I ... object to that description of me.

  Cassandra Clare

  Love You, Thinking, Years

  Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.1827, Simon and Schuster

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• I was satisfied with haiku until I met you, but now I want a Russian novel, a 50-page description of you sleeping.

  Dean Young

  Sleep, Want, Pages

  Dean Young (2011). “Fall Higher”, p.75, Copper Canyon Press

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• Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.

  Anne Enright

  Writing, World, Opinion

  "Ten rules for writing fiction" by Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, AL Kennedy, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

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• Realism should only be the means of expression of religious genius... or, at the other extreme, the artistic expressions of monkeys which are quite satisfied with mere imitation. In fact, art is never realistic though sometimes it is tempted to be. To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.

  Albert Camus

  Religious, Art, Mean

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.270, Vintage

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• War is awful. Nothing, not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. War is wretched beyond description and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality. Whatever is won in war, it is loss the veteran remembers.

  John McCain

  War, Loss, Reality

  "Mark Shields: A much different war for a changed nation", www.cnn.com. September 16, 2002.

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• All elongated objects, such as sticks, tree-trunks and umbrellas(the opening of these last being comparable to an erection) may stand for the male organ...Boxes, cases, chests, cupboards, and ovens represent the uterus...Rooms in dreams are usually women...Many landscapes in dreams, especially any containing breidges or wooded hills, may clearly be recognized as descriptions of the genitals.

  Sigmund Freud

  Dream, Tree, Uterus

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• Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.

  William Henry Hudson

  Flower, Moving, Bird

  William Henry Hudson (2010). “Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest”, p.111, The Floating Press

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• At last some curious traveller from Lima will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the editions of Baalbec and Palmyra.

  Horace Walpole

  Giving, Curiosity, Lasts

  Letter to Horace Mann, 24 Nov. 1774 See Macaulay 9

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• The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.

  Richard Rorty

  World

  Richard Rorty (1989). “Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity”, p.5, Cambridge University Press

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• All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness.  Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Mistake, Reality, Thinking

  "Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen". Book by Shunryū Suzuki. Chapter: "Letters From Emptiness", p. 33, 2002.

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