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Quotes by Novelist
"The true law of the race is progress and development. Whenever civilization pauses in the march of conquest, it is overthrown by the barbarian."
10
"But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain."
10
"If you don't learn to laugh at troubles, you won't have anything to laugh at when you grow old."
Old,
10
"At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone."
10
"But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands."
10
"Man will not merely endure; he will prevail."
10
"Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it."
10
"It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?"
10
"The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support."
10
"Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."
9
"The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts."
9
"What is worst about America was acted out. What is best in America doesn't export."
9
"We must believe in free will, we have no choice."
9
"Several tons of dynamite are set off in this picture - none of it under the right people."
9
"The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists."
9
"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."
9
"The more interesting the 9-to-5 work is, the more it takes away from my real work, which is writing."
9
"Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream."
9
"People intoxicate themselves with work so they won't see how they really are."
9
"So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some."
9
"Nonfiction that uses novelistic devices and strategies to shape the work. That's material that I really like."
Work,
9
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will."
9
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