Prose Quotes - Page 24

• My plays are made up of long monologues, which is similar to prose working with the language

  Elfriede Jelinek

  Play, Long, Language

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• Clear prose indicates the absence of thought.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Absence, Clear

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• The prose poem Walk The Red Road is great stuff and deserves to be read aloud. It compares quite favorably to The Walls Of Emerald by Li Chiang Yen, a Chinese poet of the late Tang period.

  Brian Aldiss

  Wall, Chinese, Emeralds

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• [Science fiction is] that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. It is distinguished from pure fantasy by its need to achieve verisimilitude and win the 'willing suspension of disbelief' through scientific plausibility.

  Kingsley Amis

  Technology, Winning, Class

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• Nicole Baart has written a novel that satisfies on every level. Sleeping In Eden is a compelling mystery, a tragic love story, a perceptive consideration of the callous whim of circumstance and, perhaps most important, a beautiful piece of prose. I guarantee this is a book that will haunt you long after you've turned the last page.

  William Kent Krueger

  Beautiful, Book, Sleep

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• We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We're difficult to ourselves, we're difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most “intellectual” piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are? Why does music, why does poetry have to address us in simplified terms, when if such simplification were applied to a description of our own inner selves we would find it demeaning?

  Geoffrey Hill

  Real, Self, Ordinary Days

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• The poet is a creator, not an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say in prose what can only be expressed in song.

  Edmund Clarence Stedman

  Song, Poet, Endeavor

  EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN (1875). “VICTORIAN POETS”, p.300

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• Prose is a poor thing, a poor inadequate thing, compared with poetry which says so much more in shorter time.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Poor, Inadequate

  Vita Sackville-West (2015). “Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings”, p.200, Macmillan

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• Poetry is easier to learn than prose. Once you have learned it you can use it as a light and a laser. It shows up your true situation and it helps you cut through it.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Cutting, Light, Poetry

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• Every poet, be his outward lot what it may, finds himself born in the midst of prose; h e has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Struggle, World, May

  Thomas Carlyle (1857). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Complete in One Volume”, p.228

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• Steve Forman strafes the south Florida scene with Boca Knights, an outrageously funny mystery novel with a raft of offbeat characters and prose that moves trippingly off the pen. His main man, Eddie Perlmutter, ex-Boston cop attempting semi-retirement in Boca Raton like a fish trying to retire out of the water, is a character for the ages. Carl Hiaasen, watch your back.

  Douglas Preston

  Retirement, Moving, Character

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• The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject is nothing less than the diagnosis and cure of the human malady. We follow twelve generations of New York City's Steenwycks family through their forays into phrenology, mesmerism, radium therapy and similar misadventures, a historically rich narrative that Menger-Anderson delivers in striking, elegant prose and with a sure eye for detail. This is a remarkable debut by a writer to watch.

  Ben Fountain

  New York, Eye, Cities

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• Helen Lowe writes wonderful stories, yes, but her work also speaks with lyricism to deeper questions of how we treat each other.  With lovely prose that brings vivid life to her characters, she creates a universe with people we care about. This is an author with a gift for fantasy.

  Catherine Asaro

  Character, Writing, People

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• I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary.

  Jeff VanderMeer

  Style, Stories, Care

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• All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of mankind.

  Robert Kennedy

  Gratitude, Home, Voice

  Robert Francis Kennedy (1967). “The Quotable Robert F. Kennedy”

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• As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and oratory, so is music the exaltation of poetry.

  Henry Purcell

  Exaltation, Oratory, Harmony

  Henry Purcell, Edward Taylor (1843). “King Arthur: an opera in 5 acts, written by John Dryden”, p.15

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• In rich and captivating prose, Jessica DuLong kindly invites the rest of us on the journey of her lifetime: from a dot-com job to the fabled waters of the Hudson River, where she became a fireboat engineer. This is an unusual and fascinating book.

  Jon Meacham

  Jobs, Book, Journey

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• As a prose writer, I work with language; and those who work with language turn to poetry for renewal.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Language, Renewal, Turns

  Samuel R. Delany, Carl Howard Freedman (2009). “Conversations with Samuel R. Delany”, p.55, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The lucidity of the battle narratives, the vigor of the prose, the strong feeling for the men from generals to privates who did the fighting, are all controlled by a constant sense of how it happened and what it was all about. Foote has the novelist's feeling for character and situation, without losing the historian's scrupulous regard for recorded fact. The Civil War is likely to stand unequalled.

  Walter Millis

  Strong, War, Character

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• The word "essay" means to try out, test, probe. In the essay style, successive clauses and sentences are not produced by an overarching logic, but by association; the impression that prose gives is that it can go anywhere in a manner wholly unpredictable.

  Stanley Fish

  Mean, Giving, Style

  "How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One". Book by Stanley Fish, 2011.

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• I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.

  John Legend

  Song, Writing, Thinking

  "Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. with John Legend". Live Q&As, www.washingtonpost.com. April 4, 2008.

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• Now that I can see it's the queen's new clothes Now that I can hear all your poison prose Now that I can talk with my tongue unfroze I'm not so sure of Santa or the buck tooth fairy There are no words for me inside your dictionary

  Andy Partridge

  Queens, Clothes, Teeth

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• Poetry is creative expression; Prose is constructive expression... by creative I mean original. In Poetry the words are born or reborn in the act of thinking... There is no time interval between the words and the thought when a real poet writes, both of them happen together, and both the thought and the word are Poetry.

  Herbert Read

  Real, Writing, Mean

  "English Prose Style". Book by Herbert Read, 1928.

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• When you finish a poem, it clicks shut like the top of a jewel box, but prose is endless. I haven't experienced an awful lot of clicking shut!

  Kenneth Koch

  Jewels, Awful, Boxes

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• Poetry, I thought then, and still do, is a matter of space on the page interrupted by a few well-chosen words, to give them importance. Prose is a less grand affair which has to stretch to the edges of the page to be convincing.

  Fay Weldon

  Space, Giving, Poetry

  Fay Weldon (2007). “Auto da Fay: A Memoir”, p.231, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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