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Quotes by Novelist
"The profession of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream."
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"No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim."
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"The new father finally hangs up the phone, laughing at absolutely nothing. "Congratulations," I say, when what I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in stars so that she never, ever does to him what I have done to my parents."
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"The waste basket is the writer's best friend."
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"Annabeth looked at me. " We have to get out of here." " You think I want to be in the girls' restroom?" " I mean the ship, Percy! We have to get off the ship." " Smells bad," Tyson agreed. " And dogs eat all the eggs. Annabeth is right. We must leave the restroom and the ship."
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"Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another."
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"Here we grow the flax and grain; here we raise the meat they eat, and the wool to keep them warm; we cut trees to build their houses and firewood to heat their stoves."
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"The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply."
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"The wine god sighed. 'Oh Hades if I know. But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount to anything. Look at me now. Sometimes small things can become very large indeed.' He left me alone to think about that. And as I watched Clarisse and Chris singing a stupid campfire song together, holding hands in the darkness, where they thought nobody could see them, I had to smile."
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"Poems are lenses, mirrors, and X-ray machines."
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"In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries."
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"I studied harmony and composition in a very spontaneous manner."
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"Luisa rolls her napkin into a compact ball. "I ask three simple questions. How did he get that power? How is he using it? And how can it be taken off the sonofabitch?"
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"Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining."
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"A writer flirts with schizophrenia, nurtures synesthesia, and embraces obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your art feeds on you, your soul, and, yes, to a degree, your sanity. Writing novels worth reading will bugger up your mind, jeopardize your relationships, and distend your life. You have been warned."
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"I added 'writers' to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up."
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"My first husband would never make up his mind in less than five years, so I used to get him to think that whatever course of action needed to be taken was his idea. Then he'd go right ahead."
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"Stars," she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."A tear trickled down Artemis's cheek. "Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful tonight."Stars," Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again."
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"To me, a witch is a woman that is capable of letting her intuition take hold of her actions, that communes with her environment, that isn't afraid of facing challenges."
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"I think a playwright realizes after he finishes working on the script that this is only the beginning. What will happen when it moves into three dimensions?"
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"I'd love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I'd love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I'd be one day to look inside it."
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"I wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself."
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"They may turn out to be a great disappointment, or perhaps they may be full of enchanting surprises."
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"Those that set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards."
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"This is Annabeth, Jason said. "Uh, normally she doesn't judo-flip people."
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"Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion."
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"If you had hope, maybe you could find a way to make things change,. Because if you thought about it, there were so many reasons to try."
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"You don't get ulcers from what you eat. You get them from what's eating you."
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"Fire's the sun, unwindin' itself out o' the wood."
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"I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from."
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"If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation."
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"In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction."
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"She also liked to remember that there could be no such thing as an intentional imperfection. People are always mistaking something that looks good for something that feels good."
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"Orito banishes all thoughts of Jacob de Zoet, and recalls Jacob de Zoet."
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"Leaves turned to soil beneath my feet. Thus it is, trees eat themselves."
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"A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness."
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"A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return."
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"People who light up like Roman candles come down in the dark very quickly."
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"We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history."
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