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Quotes by Novelist
"I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night."
9
"A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, the longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home."
9
"Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine."
9
"My father was a Norwegian who came from a small town near Oslo. He broke his arm at the elbow when he was 14, and they amputated it."
9
"Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down."
9
"If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed."
9
"Stir not the bitterness in the cup that I mixed for myself,' said Denethor. 'Have I not tasted it now many nights upon my tongue, foreboding that worse lay in the dregs?"
9
"The story as told in The Odyssey doesn't hold water. There are too many inconsistencies."
9
"Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes."
9
"The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards."
9
"My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them."
9
"Whatever the scientists may say, if we take the supernatural out of life, we leave only the unnatural."
9
"To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment."
9
"To love one's neighbors to love one's enemies to love everything - to love God in all His manifestations - human love serves to love those dear to us but to love one's enemies we need divine love."
9
"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."
8
"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre."
8
"A strong sense of identity gives man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same."
8
"Art is the objectification of feeling."
8
"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."
8
"Nine tenths of education is encouragement."
8
"What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote."
8
"William Packard surely must be one of the great editors of our time."
8
"The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly."
8
"The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage."
8
"Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. of 60."
8
"The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness."
8
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