Paragraph Quotes - Page 10

• Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton she's a competent politician, which means she seldom says anything in less than three paragraphs. So people like the guy who just goes, "Nuh-uh, no puppet, no puppet, you're the puppet."

  Joss Whedon

  Mean, People, Guy

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• Come back, paragraphs. America needs you.

  Merlin Mann

  America, Needs, Need You

  Twitter post from Nov 24, 2008

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• Technically I've improved - I might turn a metaphor in five words now, where years ago, it would have taken me a paragraph. I can't say it was intentional - but you know what they say about practice making perfect...!

  Jodi Picoult

  Taken, Years, Practice

  Jodi Picoult (2010). “House Rules: A Novel”, p.592, Simon and Schuster

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• There is no such thing as a natural sentence but there is such a thing as a natural paragraph and it must be found.

  Gertrude Stein

  Language, Natural, Found

  Gertrude Stein, Ulla E. Dydo (1993). “A Stein Reader”, p.551, Northwestern University Press

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• Writing is a form of herding. I herd words into little paragraph-like clusters.

  Larry McMurtry

  Writing, Littles, Herds

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• The word 'career' and 'actor' really don't fit in the same paragraph, let alone sentence. There is no career structure for actors.

  John Rhys-Davies

  Careers, Actors, Fit

  Intervie with Ken P., www.ign.com. January 22, 2004.

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• When in doubt, always start a new paragraph.

  Grace S. Richmond

  Doubt, When In Doubt

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• I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, 'promotes the general welfare' of its people.

  Richard Schiff

  Hate, America, People

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I used to do miserably in English literature, which I thought was a sign of moral turpitude. As I look back on it, I think it was rather to my credit. The notion of actually putting writers' words into other words is quite ridiculous because why bother if writers mean what they mean, and if they don't, why read them? There is, I suppose, a case for studying literary works in depth, but I don't quite know what 'in depth' means unless you read a paragraph over and over again.

  Patricia Wentworth

  Education, Mean, Thinking

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• If you are reading a large newspaper, all spread out on the table, your cat will come and sit on the very paragraph you are reading, the talented cat draping her tail with miraculous precision over the very line you're not finished with.

  Leonore Fleischer

  Reading, Cat, Tails

  Leonore Fleischer (1982). “The Cat's Pajamas”, Harpercollins

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• there are people who are born superficial ... They prefer not to have to deal with more than a limited number of oversimplified ideas - they prefer the book reviews to the books, the headlines and the leading paragraph to the full report, the generalization to the facts, and the negative to the positive.

  Gwethalyn Graham

  Book, Ideas, Numbers

  Gwethalyn Graham (1944). “Earth and High Heaven”, Philadelphia and New York : J.B. Lippincott

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• A favorite strategy was the paragraph-terminating: Right? Followed immediately by Wrong. This linear invitation to a mugging was considered a strategy of wit.

  Renata Adler

  Strategy, Linear, Conversation

  Renata Adler (2013). “Speedboat”, p.82, New York Review of Books

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• A man who is careful with his palate is not likely to be careless with his paragraphs.

  Clifton Fadiman

  Food, Men, Cooking

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• A sentence is not emotional a paragraph is.

  Gertrude Stein

  Emotional, Language, Sentences

  Gertrude Stein, Joan Retallack (2008). “Gertrude Stein: Selections”, p.242, Univ of California Press

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• I feel that in the past, my style has shown itself to be capable of handling dark and light in the same paragraph, or even in the same sentence. That's something I almost take for granted. I think it was more a concern to get the details right and persuasively recreate the world I was trying to write about.

  Michael Chabon

  Writing, Dark, Thinking

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 22, 2000.

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• The written word is the only anchor we have in life. How extraordinary would it be if we had even three or four paragraphs written honestly about their lives by our ancestors?

  Randy Wayne White

  Anchors, Three, Four

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• My favorite books have a personality and complexion as distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed into the paragraphs and smiled upon me as I read his illustrated pages.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Book, Personality, Portraits

  Amos Bronson Alcott (1872). “Concord Days”, p.133

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• No woman will ever satisfy me. I know that now, and I would never try to deny it. But this is actually okay, because I will never satisfy a woman, either. Should I be writing such thoughts? Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s a bad idea. I can definitely foresee a scenario where that first paragraph could come back to haunt me, especially if I somehow became marginally famous.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Writing, Ideas, Trying

  Chuck Klosterman (2010). “This Is Emo: An Essay from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• My God, this novel makes me break out in a cold sweat! Do you know how much I've written in five months, since the end of August? Sixty-five pages! Each paragraph is good in itself and there are some pages that are perfect. I feel certain. But just because of this, it isn't getting on. It's a series of well-turned, ordered paragraphs which do not flow on from each other. I shall have to unscrew them, loosen the joints, as one does with the masts of a ship when one wants the sail to take more wind.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Sweat, August, Wind

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• Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.

  John P. Kotter

  Inspirational, Communication, Mean

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• The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers. She was excited, filled with strength. The polished sentences had arrived, it seemed, like so many other things, at just the right time. How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others?

  James Salter

  Book, Rivers, Illumination

  "Light Years". Book by James Salter, 2011.

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• Don't get discouraged if you're hammering away at a sentence or a paragraph or a chapter, and it keeps coming out wrong. You're allowed to get it wrong, as many times as you need to; you only need to get it right once.

  Tana French

  Needs, Discouraged, Coming Out

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• I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there's a paragraph that's alive.

  Philip Roth

  Writing, Alive, Pages

  Philip Roth, George John Searles (1992). “Conversations with Philip Roth”, p.163, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis

  e. e. cummings

  Inspirational, Thinking, Life And Death

  e. e. cummings (2014). “100 Selected Poems”, p.28, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• If I didn't know the ending of a story, I wouldn't begin. I always write my last lines, my last paragraph first, and then I go back and work towards it. I know where I'm going. I know what my goal is. And how I get there is God's grace.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Writing, Goal, Grace

  Katherine Anne Porter, Joan Givner (1987). “Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations”, p.88, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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