Prose Quotes - Page 16

• Lincoln, steeped in the Bible and Shakespeare, set an impossibly high bar for presidential prose.

  Jonathan Raban

  Presidential, Bars

  Jonathan Raban (2017). “Driving Home: An American Scrapbook”, p.462, Pan Macmillan

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• Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.

  F. L. Lucas

  Simple, Sound, Principles

  F. L. Lucas (2012). “Style: The Art of Writing Well”, p.229, Harriman House Limited

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• The fact that scientists do not consciously practice a formal methodology is very poor evidence that no such methodology exists. It could be said-has been said-that there is a distinctive methodology of science which scientists practice unwittingly, like the chap in Moliere who found that all his life, unknowingly, he had been speaking prose.

  Peter Medawar

  Science, Practice, Facts

  Peter Brian Medawar (1969). “Induction and intuition in scientific thought”

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• Many of today's verses are prose and bad prose.

  Eugenio Montale

  Today, Verses

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• There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

  Eugenio Montale

  Writing, Connections, Poet

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• The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Heart, Literature, Tradition

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• Prose talks and poetry sings.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Poetry

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• It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series.

  Jacqueline Carey

  Wisdom, Struggle, Writing

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• What judgment I had increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or reject; to run them into verse or to give them the other harmony of prose.

  John Dryden

  Running, Giving, Judgment

  'Fables Ancient and Modern' (1700) preface

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• Gil Thorpe is a great diversion and is to book writing as poetry is to prose.

  Jerry B. Jenkins

  Book, Writing, Poetry Is

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• There is no form of prose more difficult to understand and more tedious to read than the average scientific paper.

  Francis Crick

  Science, Average, Paper

  Francis Crick (1995). “Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

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• There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

  John M. Ford

  Believe, Expression, People

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• I fantasised about F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' - I loved it, and then I read everything J. D. Salinger had to offer. Then I was turned on to Kerouac, and his spontaneous prose, his stream of consciousness way of writing. I admired him so much, and I romanticised so much about the '40s and '50s.

  Garrett Hedlund

  Writing, Scott Fitzgerald, Way

  "Garrett Hedlund: 'Life is fun when you're in motion'". Interview With Damon Wise, www.theguardian.com. October 6, 2012.

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• They have written volumes out of which a couplet of verse, a period in prose, may cling to the rock of ages, as a shell that survives a deluge.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Rocks, Age, Shells

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• In high school, in 1956, at the age of sixteen, we were not taught "creative writing." We were taught literature and grammar. So no one ever told me I couldn't write both prose and poetry, and I started out writing all the things I still write: poetry, prose fiction - which took me longer to get published - and non-fiction prose.

  Margaret Atwood

  Writing, School, Prose And Poetry

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• More people pay attention to fiction and to narrative than pay attention to journalism. That's quite sad. More people pay attention to television than to prose. That's equally sad, if not more so.

  David Simon

  People, Attention, Fiction

  Source: progressive.org

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• This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue-people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.

  Janet Fitch

  Dark, Voice, People

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• I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction.

  Ian Mcewan

  Believe, Perfect, Rambling

  "Some Notes on the Novella" by Ian McEwan, www.newyorker.com. October 29, 2012.

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• ...the best figurative poetry speaks not to the frivolous intellect, but (if anything does) straight to the heart; and does it better than plain prose. There seems then to be something which is better said with metaphor than without, which goes straighter to its mark by going crooked, and hits its aim exactly by flying off at tangents.

  Austin Farrer

  Heart, Flying, Doe

  Austin Farrer (2012). “Reflective Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology”, p.25, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The older I get, the more I seek to use a plain prose style, concentrating more on story.

  John Scott

  Style, Stories, Use

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• I'm primarily a poet, so I'd have to say in my case I'd investigate the mystery in poetry in a different way than prose might investigate it, in a way that includes the power of the music of language and maybe more imaginatively in poetry, but I don't really know about better or worse. I guess it depends on the writer.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Way, Different, Might

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

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• Poetry is so close to music, not just in cadence and sound but in silences. That's why, to me, I can't talk about prose poems. I can talk about poetic prose.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Silence, Sound, Cadence

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

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• For me, prose is never a poem. Because with prose there are so very few tools to create the music. And one of the most important tools missing is the ability to create silences, as you can in poetry by how you fashion the lines and breaks within the lines and stanzas.

  Pattiann Rogers

  Fashion, Missing, Silence

  "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

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• I've seen plays that are, objectively, total messes that move me in ways that their tidier brethren do not. That's the romantic mystery of great theater. Translating this ineffability into printable prose is a challenge that can never be fully met.

  Ben Brantley

  Moving, Play, Challenges

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• History meets romance meets suspense! Compelling, original and wildly romantic, Beatriz Williams’ prose is stunning and the plot edge-of-your-seat gripping. OVERSEAS is an absolute triumph—I loved every page.

  Tilly Bagshawe

  Romance, Triumph, Plot

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