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Quotes by Novelist
"Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing."
7
"A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy."
7
"We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through."
7
"Most of the time we think we're sick, it's all in the mind."
7
"Of all the Beauties, it is that which attracts the most lasting Admiration, gives the greatest Charm to every thing we say or do, and renders us amiable in every Station, and thro' every Stage of Life."
7
"He always thought of the sea as 'la mar' which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as 'el mar' which is masculine.They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought."
7
"Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power."
7
"Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can't have too many friends because then you're just not really friends."
7
"I've never listened to music lying down. Listening's reading if you close your eyes.Music's a wood you walk through."
7
"Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost."
7
"Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken."
7
"Every novelist has a different purpose - and often several purposes which might even be contradictory."
7
"There are crimes that are truly uncomely. With crimes, whatever they may be, the more blood, the more horror there is, the more imposing they are, the more picturesque, so to speak, but there are crimes that are shameful, disgraceful, all horror aside, so to speak, even far too ungracious..."
7
"Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it."
7
"For me, words are just words, nothing else."
7
"I have always unswervingly held, that God, in our civilizing world, manifests Himself not in the miracles of biblical age, but in progress. It is progress that leads humanity up the ladder towards the God-head. No Jacob's ladder this, no, but rather Civilization's Ladder, if you will."
7
"For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse."
7
"A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason."
7
"For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first."
7
"When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning-human meaning, that is-is defined by them. You have to admit that."
7
"I never was a person who wanted a handout. I was a cafeteria worker. I'm not too proud to ask the Best Western manager to give me a job. I have cleaned homes."
7
"Because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person."
7
"Of all the sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity."
7
"It's always obvious to me when someone is looking at me with an idea of who I am and hoping that that's the person I'm going to be. No matter how subtle it is, it's there, and you want to give them who they really want. But it ain't me."
7
"But the animation has become very good, and I think that a movie is not a book, and a book is not a movie."
7
"A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood."
7
"Yes, they have to have a victor. Without a victor, the whole thing would blow up in the Gamemakers' faces. They'd have failed the Capitol. Might possibly even be executed, slowly and painfully, while the cameras broadcast it to every screen in the country."
7
"To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation."
7
"Every man's memory is his private literature."
7
"One thing I do know about intimacy is that there are certain natural laws which govern the sexual experience of two people, and that these laws cannot be budged any more than gravity can be negotiated with. To feel physically comfortable with someone else's body is not a decision you can make. It has very little to do with how two people think or act or talk or even look. The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not."
7
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