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Quotes by Novelist
"You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends."
6
"Your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary."
6
"I was in the mood to make out in the back row of the movie theater with someone who did not know my first name. I wanted three guys to fight for the honor of buying me a drink."
6
"Italian men are beautiful in the same way as French women, which is to say - no detail spared in the quest for perfection."
6
"A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart."
6
"A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves, bringing with it the scent of fresh-turned earth and lavender blossoms. Amanda drew to the side of the balcony, where she was completely concealed from view. As she leaned against the wall of the house, the rough texture of the red brick gently abraded her bare shoulders.She had worn a pale blue, corded-silk gown with a low-cut back, and draperies of gauze that crossed over the bodice in an X pattern. The long sleeves of the gown were made of more transparent gauze, while her hands were encased in white gloves. The flash of her bare arms beneath the filmy blue silk made Amanda feel sophisticated and daring."
6
"You're not a bad person because you want to be yourself."
6
"They've given Harry the attributes of pistachio nuts and crack cocaine without the health risks (opening thousands of pistachio nuts can cause severe thumb-bruising, I can tell you from bitter experience of my life on the edge)."
6
"You've thrown down the gauntlet. You've brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. But If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist, then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master."
6
"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!'Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity."
6
"Everybody now seems to be talking about democracy. I don't understand this. As I think of it, democracy isn't like a Sunday suit to be brought out and worn only for parades. It's the kind of a life a decent man leads, it's something to live for and to die for."
6
"In the beginning there was only a small amount of injustice abroad in the world, but everyone who came afterwards added their portion, always thinking it was very small and unimportant, and look where we have ended up today."
6
"You took Theo's title and his home," West continued in appalled disbelief, "and now you want his wife.""His widow," Devon muttered."Have you seduced her?""Not yet."West clapped his hand to his forehead. "Christ. Don't you think she's suffered enough?"
6
"Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears."
6
"Another woman approached me while I was having lunch at the Russian Tea Room in New York and told me that the reason she had become a lawyer was because she had read 'Rage of Angels'. To me, that kind of feedback has more meaning than any sales figures."
6
"Reading off a page is like looking down at a landscape from a balloon " your eye "sees" the story as well as reads it, its layout, its paragraphs and structure, and "remembers" what it just read because it's still there, on the page, simultaneously. If you want to, you can reread any line instantly; or linger; or speed up; or optically "flinch." Reading a series of tweets is more like looking through a narrow window from a train speeding through a landscape full of tunnels and bands of light and dark. Each tweet erases its predecessor."
6
"Our life is a book that writes itself and whose principal themes sometimes escape us. We are like characters in a novel who do not always understand what the author wants of them."
Life,
6
"It's as if they actually think that what other people think of them somehow doesn't matter. I mean, I know we're all supposed to believe that, but obviously, none of us actually do. And nor should we, because it does! It does matter! And the people who genuinely believe it doesn't tend to be the very people who ought to care most what other people think of them, because what the other people are thinking is, 'No, actually, I don't think the Chinese are "up to something,"' or, 'You should use mouthwash,' or, 'Your mania for the collective socialization of agriculture will surely cause the deaths of millions,' or, 'Forty cats is too many cats."
6
"The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive."
6
"For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
6
"The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it."
6
"If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth."
6
"I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free."
6
"All my pupils are the creme de la creme. Give me a girl of an impressionable age, and she is mine for life."
6
"Turn around, and the people you thought you knew might change. Your little boy might now live half a world away. Your beautiful daughter might be sneaking out at night. Your ex-husband might by dying by degrees. This is the reason that dancers learn, early on, how to spot while doing pirouettes: we all want to be able to find the place where we started."
6
"My mistakes are usually so enjoyable that I tend torepeat them."
6
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