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Quotes by Novelist
"Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason."
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"There is something great and terrible about suicide."
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"But this is life on earth, you can't have everything."
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"I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery."
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"One can't carry one's father's corpse about everywhere."
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"Stars are fires that burn for thousands of years. Some of them burn slow and long, like red dwarfs. Others-blue giants-burn their fuel so fast they shine across great distances, and are easy to see. As they start to run out of fuel, they burn helium, grow even hotter, and explode in a supernova. Supernovas, they're brighter than the brightest galaxies. They die, but everyone watches them go."
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"Yeah, well, when they say 'You know it's a long way, don't you?' what they really mean is: 'You know it'd be faster if you just rode a kangaroo, don't you?"
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"A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance."
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"I just know Maycomb. I'm not in the least sensitive about it, but good Lord, I'm certainly aware of it."
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"I mean, I have the feeling that something in my mind is poisoning everything else."
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"It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles."
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"The absent are like children, helpless to defend themselves."
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"Fiction wouldn't be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere."
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"American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous."
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"Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death."
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"It was interesting the way a small hate could grow inside a big hate and take it over."
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"The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level."
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"What is a neglected child? He is a child not planned for, not wanted. Neglect begins, therefore, before he is born."
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"I blamed the Bible,when its words were not at fault,only the way they're interpretedby those too willingto wield them like chain saws,cutting others off at the knees."
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"And Gandalf said: "This is your realm, and the heart of the greater realm that shall be. The Third Age of the world is ended, and the new age is begun; and it is your task to order its beginning and to preserve what must be preserved. For though much has been saved, much must now pass away; and the power of the Three Rings also is ended. And all the lands that you see, and those that lie round about them, shall be dwellings of Men. For the time comes of the Dominion of Men, and the Elder Kindred shall fade or depart."
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"There is a place called 'heaven' where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet."
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"The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply."
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"I've always liked being relatively obscure. I feel that's where I belong, that's where my work belongs."
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"People who are in power make their arrangements in secret, largely as a way of maintaining and furthering that power."
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"The morning was a wretched time of day for him. He feared it and it never brought him any good. On no morning of his life had he ever been in good spirits nor done any good before midday, nor ever had a happy idea, nor devised any pleasure for himself or others. By degrees during the afternoon he warmed and became alive, and only towards evening, on his good days, was he productive active and sometimes, aglow with joy."
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"Novels were not arguments; a story worked, or it didn't, on its own merits. What did it matter if a detail was real or imagined? What mattered was that the detail seemed real, and that it was absolutely the best detail for the circumstance. That wasn't much of a theory, but it was all Ruth could truly commit herself to at the moment. It was time to retire that old lecture, and her penance was to endure the compliments of her former credo."
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"Life has enough torturers as it is, without you going around moonlighting as a Grand Inquisitor against yourself."
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"The most important thing in marriage is not happiness but stability."
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"I am alone on this road strewn with bones and bordered by ruins! Angels have their brothers, and demons have their infernal companions. Yet I have but the sound of my scythe when it harvests, my whistling arrows, my galloping horse. Always the sound of the same wave eating away at the world."
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"I made sure to brush my teeth as soon as I was able. I even asked for a hair tie to pull my long, blood-red hair into a twist at the nape of my neck so I wouldn't have that 'freshly hospitalized' look."
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"An intellectual is usually someone who isn't exactly distinguished by his intellect," Corelli asserted. "he claims that label to compensate for his inadequacies. It's as old as that saying : "Tell me what you boast of and I'll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant, and the feeble-minded as intellectual. Once again, it's all the work of nature. Far from being the sylph to whom poets sing, nature is a cruel, voracious mother who needs to feed on the creatures she gives birth to in order to stay alive."
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