"Books … are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development." — Dorothy L. Sayers; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
"Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flock of variegated feather and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub agains some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world." — Virginia Woolf; (found quote)
When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. — Desiderius Erasmus; (found quote)
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read. — G.K. Chesterton; (found quote)
"Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us in the minds of other people, it gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things over and over." — Neil Gaiman; (found quote)
"Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window." — William Faulkner; The Paris Review (Spring 1956)
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx; (found quote)
“You want weapons? We're in a Library! Books! The best weapons in the world!” – Doctor Who (David Tennant) in “The Library of Silence”
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. — Oscar Wilde; (found quote)
"There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts." — Charles Dickens; Oliver Twist
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. — Groucho Marx; (found quote)
When I am dead, I hope it may be said: "His sins were scarlet, but his books were read." — Hilaire Belloc; "On His Books"
How could an actual person fit into the covers of a book? The book is not a continent, not a definite geographical measure, it cannot contain so huge a thing as an actual full-size person. Any person has to be scaled by eliminations to fit the book world. —
Pearl S. Buck;
Advice to Unborn Novelists
Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels. — P.G. Wodehouse; (found quote)
"I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics — Well, they can do whatever they wish." — Isaac Asimov; (found quote), 1989
"I wrote the books I should have liked to read. That's always been my reason for writing. People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself." — C.S. Lewis; (found quote)
"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice." — Octavia E. Butler; (Found Quote)
"A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper." — Ursula K. Le Guin; "A Few Words to a Young Writer"
“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” — G.K. Chesterton, Heretics
“The fact is, I don't know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn't collapse when you beat your head against it.” —Douglas Adams; (found quote)
“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.” — Franz Kafka; (found quote)
"The cat sat on the mat is not a story; the cat sat on the dog’s mat is the beginning of an exciting story, and out of that collision, perhaps, there comes a sense of retribution. Now you may call that God, or you may call it the presence of fatalistic forces in society, or you may call it man’s inhumanity to man. But, in the immortal words of P.G. Wodehouse, what it boils down to is that if your character does something wrong, sooner or later if he walks down a dark street, fate will slip out with a stuffed eel-skin and get him." — John Le Carré; (found quote)
“There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error.” — William Faulkner; (found quote)
“One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience… Storytelling is a tool for knowing who we are and what we want.” — Ursula K. Le Guin; (found quote)
“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It's that easy, and that hard.” ― Neil Gaiman; (found quote)
"I think new screenwriters are too worried it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you." — David Lynch; (found quote)
"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." — Jack London; (found quote)
"All the stories I would like to write persecute me when I am in my chamber; it seems as if they are all around me, the little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, ‘Sir, write me, I am beautiful’." — Umberto Eco; (found quote)
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This Week’s Challenge:
Write a scene in which a character brings up an aphorism; perhaps sharing advice with another character, or maybe just musing on a quotation which fits the current situation.
Or, write your thoughts on one of the quotes in this diary
Or, invent a pithy remark of your own for your character to quote.
Remember the sage advice of Bertram Wilberforce Wooster:
If it weren't for quotations, conversations between gentlemen would consist of an endless succession of What-hos. — P.G. Wodehouse; (found quote)