Usual Quotes - Page 23

• I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic. Inspiration is better when you can get it.

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Inspiration, Writing, Valleys

  Lois McMaster Bujold, Bujold (1997). “Young Miles”, Baen Books

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• The usual bad poem in somebody's Collected Works is a learned, mannered, valued habit, a habit a little more careful than, and little emptier than, brushing one's teeth.

  Randall Jarrell

  Teeth, Littles, Habit

  "Poetry and the Age" by Randall Jarrell, Vintage paperback, (p. 216), 1955.

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• The usual criticism of a novel about an artist is that, no matter how real he is as a man, he is not real to us as an artist, since we have to take on trust the works of art he produces.

  Randall Jarrell

  Art, Real, Men

  "The Third Book of Criticism". Book by Randall Jarrell,"An Unread Book", p. 20, 1969.

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• And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.

  John Ruskin

  Strong, Inspiration, Men

  John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.68, University of Virginia Press

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• Daisy was a consciously happy young woman without any of the usual endowments that make for conscious happiness, money apart. She was not pretty, she was not clever, she had no friends, no talents, nor even an imagination to make her think she was happy when she was really miserable. As she was never miserable, she had no need of an imagination.

  Laura Riding

  Clever, Thinking, Imagination

  "Progress of Stories". Book by Laura Riding. Chapter "Daisy and Venison", 1935.

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• It is usual for a woman, even though she may ardently desire to give herself to a man, to feign reluctance, to simulate alarm or indignation. She must be brought to consent by urgent pleading, by lies, adjurations, and promises. I know that only professional prostitutes are accustomed to answer such an invitation with a perfectly frank assent -- prostitutes, or simple-minded, immature girls.

  Stefan Zweig

  Girl, Women, Lying

  Stefan Zweig (2009). “Selected Stories”, p.69, Pushkin Press

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• The usual relationship between an artist and his painting is like the relationship with the father, or a husband's with his wife. But mine is a relationship with a stranger... with the chance acquaintance.

  Ilya Kabakov

  Husband, Father, Artist

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• In 1915 Sophie Tauber and I carried out our first works in the simplest forms, using painting, embroidery and pasted paper (without using oil colors to avoid any reference with usual painting). These were probably the first manifestations of their kind, pictures that were their own reality, without meaning or cerebral intention. We rejected everything in the nature of a copy or a description, in order to give free flow to what was elemental and spontaneous.

  Hans Arp

  Reality, Order, Color

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• It is not usual to speak of an employee as a partner, and yet what else is he?

  Henry Ford

  Speak, Partners, Employee

  Henry Ford, Rose Wilder Lane, Samuel Crowther “The Story of Henry Ford - An American Dream Cone True”, Lulu.com

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• I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read. The story of my childhood is the usual bleak fantasy, and we can dismiss it with the restrained observation that I certainly would not consider living it again.

  James A. Baldwin

  Childhood, Stories, Fantasy

  "Autobiographical Notes" by James A. Baldwin (1952), republished in James A. Baldwin "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), archive.nytimes.com.

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• Creeping featurism is a disease, fatal if not treated promptly. There are some cures, but, as usual, the best approach is to practice preventative medicine.

  Donald A. Norman

  Practice, Medicine, Disease

  "The Design of Everyday Things". Book by Don Norman, ch. 6, p. 173, 1988.

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• Conventions are convenient. It is inconvenient to say people are dead when they are alive, or alive when they have been buried, or that the world is crumbling when it is, as everyone can see, there as usual. If all A that does not fit B is ipso facto disqualified, we have to tailor A to shape and size to avoid serious trouble, and not all are equally gifted in this art.

  R. D. Laing

  Art, People, Doe

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• It is so hard for an evolutionary biologist to write about extinction caused by human stupidity. Let me then float an unconventional plea, the inverse of the usual argument. The extinction of Partula is unfair to Partula. That is the conventional argument, and I do not challenge its primacy. But we need a humanistic ecology as well, both for the practical reason that people will always touch people more than snails do or can, and for the moral reason that humans are legitimately the measure of all ethical questions for these are our issues, not nature's.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Writing, Issues, Ethical Questions

  "Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History". Book by Stephen Jay Gould. "Unenchanted Evening", p. 39, 1993.

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• Preposterous ass, that never read so far to know the cause why music was ordain'd! Was it not to refresh the mind of man, after his studies or his usual pain?

  William Shakespeare

  Music, Pain, Men

  1593 Lucentio to Hortensio.TheTaming of the Shrew, act 3, sc.1, l.9-12.

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• A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.

  William James

  Inward, Paradise, Tranquility

  William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.261, Library of America

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• There is no family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair pretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues from our steeples.

  Mark Twain

  Sunday, America, Issues

  Mark Twain (2015). “A Tramp Abroad: Mark Twain's Collections”, p.155, 谷月社

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• The usual people tried to claim responsibility. First the IRA , then the PLO and the Gas Board. Even British Nuclear Fuels rushed out a statement to the effect that the situation was completely under control, that it was a one in a million chance, that there was hardly any radioactive leakage at all, and that the site of the explosion would make a nice location for a day out with the kids and a picnic, before finally having to admit that it wasn't actually anything to do with them at all.

  Douglas Adams

  Nice, Kids, Responsibility

  Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

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• [The Golden Notebook] was not a trumpet for Women's Liberation. It described many female emotions of aggression, hostility, resentment. It put them into print. Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing, came as a great surprise. Instantly a lot of very ancient weapons were unleashed, the main ones, as usual, being on the theme of "She is unfeminine", "She is a man-hater".

  Doris Lessing

  Notebook, Men, Thinking

  Doris May Lessing (1989). “The Doris Lessing Reader”, Jonathan Cape

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• Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history : the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal "honor" and court etiquette.

  Isaac Asimov

  Names, Two, Honor

  Isaac Asimov (1991). “Great Tales of the Golden Age of Science Fiction”, Bbs Publishing Corporation

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• Sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical. I never tried my hand at that sort of writing but on this particular occasion such was my state of feeling, that I began to fancy myself inspired; so I took pen in hand, and as usual I went ahead.

  Davy Crockett

  Writing, Hands, Oysters

  Davy Crockett (1834). “A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett ...”

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• The Bobbit case, which brought to life the ancient mythic archetype of woman as castrator, demonstrated that women are as aggressive as men and that sex is a dark, dangerous force of nature. But of course the feminist establishment, stuck in its battered-woman blinders, learned nothing as usual from this lurid refutation of its normal views. Classic art works like Bizet's Carmen tell us more about the irrationality of love, jealousy and revenge than do all the pat formulas of the counseling industry.

  Camille Paglia

  Art, Sex, Revenge

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• Strip away the usual hot air, and bin Laden's audiotape is the sign of a seriously weakened man.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Men, Air, Hot

  "Who Needs More Mud Huts?". Newsweek Article, www.khaleejtimes.com. May 03, 2006.

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• The new paradigm may be called a holistic world view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. It may also be called an ecological view, if the term "ecological" is used in a much broader and deeper sense than usual. Deep ecological awareness recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical process of nature.

  Fritjof Capra

  Views, Fundamentals, World

  Fritjof Capra, Pier Luigi Luisi (2014). “The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”, p.12, Cambridge University Press

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• All the excitements of a prohibited book had their usual effect, one of which, as always, is to expose the fact that the censors don't know what they are talking about.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Book, Talking, Facts

  Christopher Hitchens (2014). “Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere”, p.130, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I'm not committed as a writer, in the usual sense of the term, either religiously or politically. And I'm not conscious of any particular social function. I write because I want to write. I don't see any placards on myself, and I don't carry any banners.

  Harold Pinter

  Writing, Want, Social

  Harold Pinter (1977). “Plays: two”

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