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Quotes by Novelist
"There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all."
38
"The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel."
38
"Why are you leaving me?He wrote, I do not know how to live.I do not know either but I am trying.I do not know how to try.There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So i buried them and let them hurt me."
38
"Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something."
38
"Grandfather looked away from me and out to sea, and when he spoke, it was as though he spoke to himself. "The obligations of normal human kindness " chesed, as the Hebrew has it " that we all owe. But there's a kind of vanity in thinking you can nurse the world. There's a kind of vanity in goodness.I could hardly believe my ears. "But aren't we supposed to be good?"I'm not sure. Grandfather's voice was heavy. "I do know that we're not good, and there's a lot of truth to the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
38
"There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about."
38
"I've been so bothered with my property, that I'm tired of it, and don't mean to save up any more, but give it away as I go along, and then nobody will envy me, or want to steal it, and I shan't be suspecting folks and worrying about my old cash."
38
"I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood."
38
"Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied."
38
"Like some of the rest of us, she never reflected how balefully her evil mood might operate; and that all things work for good in the end, will not cover those by whom come the offenses. Another night's rest, it is true, sent the evil mood to sleep again for a time, but did not exorcise it; for there are demons that go not out without prayer, and a bad temper is one of them--a demon as contemptible, mean-spirited, and unjust, as any in the peerage of hell--much petted, nevertheless, and excused, by us poor lunatics who are possessed by him."
38
"An old walrus-faced waiter attended to me; he had the knack of pouring the coffee and the hot milk from two jugs, held high in the air, and I found this entrancing, as if he were a child's magician. One day he said to me - he had some English - "Why are you sad?""I'm not sad," I said, and began to cry. Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous."You should not be sad," he said, gazing at me with his melancholy, leathery walrus eyes. "It must be the love. But you are young and pretty, you will have time to be sad later." The French are connoisseurs of sadness, they know all the kinds. This is why they have bidets. "It is criminal, the love," he said, patting my shoulder. "But none is worse."
38
"Celaena peered in the mirror-and stopped dead.The somewhat shorter hair was the least of the changes.She was now flushed with color, her eyes bright and clear, and though she'd regained the weight she'd lost during that winter, her face was leaner. A woman-a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-slumbering joy in her heart."
38
"Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case."
38
""Very well." "Say it." "Say what?" "Say my name. Say, 'Very well, Dorian.' "She rolled her eyes. "If it pleases Your Magnanimous Holiness, I shall call you by your first name.""
38
"But if you tame me, then weshall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, Ishall be unique in all the world."
38
"Knowing someone's name meant knowing that the other person was a human being and not "the enemy. Knowing someone's name transformed him into a unique and special individual, with a past and a future, with ancestors and possibly descendants, a person who has known triumphs and failures. People are their names; they're proud of them; they repeat them thousands of times in their lifetime and identify with them. It's the first word they learn after "Daddy and "Mummy."
38
"There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises....If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what's honest, not what pays."
38
"Ripley is married. And he's not lost. He has his feet on the ground."
38
"Frank didn't drop you on purpose, she said. "He's not like that. He's just a little clumsy sometimes."Oops, Leo said, in his best Frank Zhang voice. "Dropped Leo into a squad of enemy soldiers. Dang it!"
38
"The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question."
38
"You should not judge, you should understand."
38
"My phone buzzes. It's from Karou: a list of conversation openers that I won't be needing. -a) Hi. I'm Zuzana. I'm actually a marionette brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and the only way I can gain a soul is if a human falls in love with me. Help a puppet out? -b) Hi. I'm Zuzana. The touch of my lips imparts immortality. Just sayin'. -c) Hi. I'm Zuzana. I think I might like you."
38
"When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it."
38
"I try not to borrow, first you borrow then you beg."
38
"When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person."
38
"Sometimes you have to live in precarious and temporary places. Unsuitable places. Wrong places. Sometimes the safe place won't help you."
38
"Which isn't, like, as bad as it sounds, because the general public kind of sucks ass."
38
"By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick."
38
"I can't be a priest because although my heart is as loud as hers I can pretend no answering riot. I have shouted to God and the Virgin, but they have not shouted back and I'm not interested in the still small voice. Surely a god can meet passion with passion? She says he can. Then he should."
38
"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."
38
"One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them."
38
"And Esme remembered in a rush--the wolfsong, the haunting, lyrical spirals of it in the dawn quiet and the feeling of euphoria that had attended it. Even in recollection the howling uplifted her like the crescendo at the end of a symphony and made her heartbeat quicken."
38
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