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| Rosie McDonald |
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Author has written 2 stories for Sci-Fi. Hey,guys,please vote on my pole! Cookies er I mean Profile, I LOVE COOKIES! Cookies are yummy! Don’t you think? Wait can’t you read this. Can you? Well this is fun. Type your name with your elbow: 5R40OEW9IM KMFCRDO0PLRD This is how you type cookie with your elbow: FCO0O0KII9K4E Type your name with your chin: reoisaiuew mncdsoi nZAk,xc Look at the cookie typed with chin: coikimnjkwe Type your name with your feet: tghe4eo9sdiioed m c dcaslode This is cookie:c voololk,ikdded Type with your nose;cdriosuie mcxkn bzaklxd Look at cookie: cxookjids Type your name with your cheek: m osw uswx nfdsvmncxdsk in ,md What about cookie: xclk m l um kjde Type your name with your tounge: rcm osis mcd imbakd Go cookie: c ookiw type your name with your eyes closed: rodir mdgonald typety the cookietty: ciikmrur name: cookie oops Rosie McDonald Live in: cal. Cookie lives in: my tummy Birthday: cookie day/cookie month/cookie year Age: cookie age(duh) Gender: female cookies are awesome! Hair:cookie blonde Favorite color: purple and cookie Favorite food: cookiess Favorite dessert: cookies Favorite cookie: chocolate chip Favorite pie: cookie pie Favorite candy: cookie candy Favorite ceral: cookie crisp Now,you want to know what I like? All I say is round up all the people that are not wearing glasses,then you will know where not to look for me. Favorite Books 1. Divergent 2. Insurgent 3. Maximum Ride 4. Taken 5. Pursued 6. Hidden 7. Rescued 8. Stung 9. Frantic 10. Shaken 11. Unmasked 12. Deceived 13. Protected 14. Hunted 15. Left Behind 16. Tribulation Force 17. Nicolae 18. Soul Harvest 19. Apollyon 20. Assassins 21. The Indwelling 22. The Mark 23. Desecration 24. The Remnant 25. Armageddon 26. Glorious Appearing (I love dystopian books! And can not wait for the third book in the Divergent trilogy to come out) Forums I am apart of: Alone Mod: Imaybeawesome Maximum Ride: The Roleplay Mod: Twas Warith Mutant Roleplaying Mod: (yours truely) Rosie McDonald!!!!! ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am planning to write two other stories, they are called James Ramsey and the other called Living the Butterfly Theory. I have a few more ideas for stories but don't have names yet. Sayings that have to do with COOKIES! “A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.” “'You have no fortune.' I didn't need a cookie to tell me that.” “That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” “The Vice-Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does.” Baking cookies is comforting, and cookies are the sweetest little bit of comfort food. They are very bite-sized and personal. Sandra Lee Baking is how you start kids at cooking in the kitchen. It's fun whether it's baking bread or cookies. With baking, you have to be exact when it comes to ingredients. Fortune cookies are a good idea. If the message is positive, it can make your day a little better. I ate everything - a lot of pizza, bags of chips and boxes of cookies. Now I love chicken, that's all I eat. I can't convince you to put the drink down if you're an alcoholic, you have to want to do that. I can't convince you to stop eating the cookies when you're a diabetic. You have to do that. And that takes responsibility. I don't get sent anything strange like underwear. I get sent cookies. I love chocolate chip cookies - really anything with chocolate will do! I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know? They're incredibly popular. But everybody thinks of cakes and pies and fancier desserts before they think cookies. A plate of cookies is a great way to end dinner and really nice to share at the holidays. I use nothing but the best ingredients. My cookies are always baked fresh. I price cookies so that you cannot make them at home for any less. And I still give cookies away. I was not a classic mother. But my kids were never palmed off to boarding school. So, I didn't bake cookies. You can buy cookies, but you can't buy love. I'm a mom, a full-time mom when I'm not taping. I do the carpool thing, and bake the cookies, and do the homework. I'm lucky because I have a job I love. I really miss being away from home, being in my own bed, seeing my animals and siblings, having my moms cookies. I have a couple cats. I got a kitten about a year ago and now Im going on the road so I wont see him for a while. I feel bad. If I'm teaching girls that do love to make cookies and do love fashion - that they can use math as a part of that - you think that's me saying, come on girls you belong in the kitchen, you belong shopping? Or, do you think it's me showing them how math is part of all their life, even the part they thought it had nothing to do with? Dessert Sayings Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. Ernestine Ulmer I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream. Heywood Broun Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. Sandra Boynton I want to have a good body, but not as much as I want dessert. Jason Love Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos. Don Kardong Stressed spelled backwards is desserts. Coincidence? I think not! Author Unknown There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love chocolate, and communists. Leslie Moak Murray Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie. Jim Davis If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. Carl Sagan Ice cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal. Voltaire Always serve too much hot fudge sauce on hot fudge sundaes. It makes people overjoyed, and puts them in your debt. Judith Olney A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around. E.W. Howe Forget love - I'd rather fall in chocolate! Attributed to Sandra J. Dykes Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces. Judith Viorst Look, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates. Fernando Pessoa Nerd Sayings When Life Gives You Questions, Google has Answers 1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips." If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0 There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. I'm not anti-social; I'm just not user friendly The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be. --Jocks vs Nerds-- Michael Jordan having "retired," with $40 million in endorsements, makes $178,100 a day, working or not. If he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head. If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there. If he decides to have a 5-minute egg, he'll make $618 while boiling it. He makes $7,415/hr more than minimum wage. He'll make $3,710 while watching each episode of Friends. If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000) it would take him a whole 12 hours. If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second. He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33,390 for that round. Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his income into a tax deferred account (401k), his contributions will hit the federal cap of $9500 at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st. If you were given a penny for every 10 dollars he made, you'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a year. He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100 meter dash in the Olympics, and about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon. While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in about $5600. This year, he'll make more than twice as much as all U.S. past presidents for all of their terms combined. Amazing isn't it? However... $$$ Game over. Nerd wins. I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code "If Bill Gates had a penny for every time I had to reboot my computer...oh wait he does." Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted. 2 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2. Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. My software never has bugs. It just develops random features. Best file compression around: "DEL ." = 100% compression BREAKFAST.COM Halted...Cereal Port Not Responding The name is Baud..., James Baud. Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!" As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/Nope) Backups? We don' NEED no steenking backups. CONGRESS.SYS Corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C. (Y/n)? Windows: Just another pane in the glass. SENILE.COM found . . . Out Of Memory . . . All computers wait at the same speed. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue... All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound? Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue. "640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981 Press any key to continue or any other key to quit... Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to continue ... Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF. All my base Are belong to you someone on SlashDot. There is no place like 127.0.0.1. Girls are like Internet Domain names; the ones I like are already taken. Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination. Albert Einstein My Software never has bugs. It just develops random features. Passwords are like underwear. You shouldn’t leave them out where people can see them. You should change them regularly. And you shouldn’t loan them out to strangers Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue. A Life? Cool! Where can I download one of those? Concept: On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape button. Alert! User Error. Please replace user and press any key to continue. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. Weinberg’s Second Law A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history – with the possible exceptions of handguns. In a world without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows? Failure is not an option — it comes bundled with Windows JUST SHUT UP AND REBOOT!! Better to be a geek than an idiot. Who needs friends? My PC is user friendly. A penny saved is 1.39 cents earned, if you consider income tax. Glasses Quotes A celebrity is a person who works hard all of their life to become well known, and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. After getting glasses and contacts it was kind of a wow moment that I could definitely see better and on the soccer field it really helped me. After watching my first World Series in 1977, I wanted to be Reggie Jackson. I bought a big Reggie poster. I ate Reggie candy bars. I entered a phase during which I insisted on having the same style of glasses Reggie had: gold wire frames with the double bar across. Also, when you think about a show that you used to watch as a kid or as a teenager, you look at it through sort of rose colored glasses when you remember it. Do not expect the world to look bright, if you habitually wear gray-brown glasses. Don't call the world dirty because you forgot to clean your glasses. Everybody was starting to grow long hair and wear pink suits and purple glasses and stuff and then, I suppose, some people thought we were crazy, but we weren't really crazy because we're all still here! Ads by Google Famous people come up to me, but I don't know who they are because my sight is so bad. It's always at the pool of the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills when I don't have my lenses in and my glasses are in my room. He is a drunkard who takes more than three glasses though he be not drunk. I came from dinner, went downtown with my friends, the elevator was down, I ran down the hall toward my room at 10 at night, having had two glasses of wine. I got rid of my glasses and they changed my hair. That's really all they did. They went shopping for me, so the clothes are different too. It wasn't like Extreme Makeover where I got a nose job or anything. I guess I kind of lived in a fairytale world... looking at everything through rose-colored glasses. I probably always will, to a certain extent. I had glasses and was kind of weird. A lot of actors are pretty weird people. I knew all this Beatles music. I knew the songs phonetically. It was like my whole experience of that music was out of focus, and somebody put the perfect glasses on me, and all of a sudden I could see everything. Book Quotes Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. There is no past, as long as books shall live. Books make the past our heritage and our home. I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. The closest thing we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library. Nobody ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have while trying to write one. A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking. I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing. Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience : this is the ideal life. A book of quotations – can never be complete. Choose your friends like your books, few but choice. So many books, so little time. A room without a book is like a body without a soul. People say life is the thing, but I prefer reading. Never read a book through merely because you have begun it. I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. A book worth reading is worth buying. You don’t write a book to show off. Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier. Wear the old coat and buy the new book. If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. Life transforming ideas have always come to me through books. Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read. Outside of a dog, a book is probably man’s best friend, and inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. The best friend you will ever have is a book, because it never leaves you. Don’t judge a book by its movie. A book is like a treasure chest……. You open it, and the words are the treasures. If you sleep with your book under your pillow……… You can hear the stories. A book is a treasure chest; every page a treasure, every word a jewel embedded into the treasure, and every letter a sparkle in the jewel. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader!!!!!! Reading a book is like opening a little world that’s almost like a second life. A book is like carrying a garden in your pocket. It always is full of life, new smells, and new things to see. Always read. No matter what Don’t judge the book from its cover, open it and you’ll discover. A man without a library is like a garden without flowers. A world without books is like a world without air. You can’t live without it. Dont judge a book by its cover. A man without knowledge is like a bird without wings. Open the book with smile and close the book with knowledge. We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate. A book is like garden carried in the pocket. A good book has no ending……………………………………………….. If you don’t like reading, you have the wrong book. If you judge a book by its cover, you may miss an amazing story. The one who reads more, is the one who learns more. Books are your good friends. A good book on your shelf is a friend that turns its back on you and remains a friend. Author Unknown A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy. Edward P. Morgan The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. James Bryce Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book. Author Unknown A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958 There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read. G.K. Chesterton Many people, other than the authors, contribute to the making of a book, from the first person who had the bright idea of alphabetic writing through the inventor of movable type to the lumberjacks who felled the trees that were pulped for its printing. It is not customary to acknowledge the trees themselves, though their commitment is total. Forsyth and Rada, Machine Learning If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. Toni Morrison I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991 Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. Charles W. Eliot Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. P.J. O'Rourke The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. Mark Twain, attributed A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins. Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia, 1833 Let books be your dining table, I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things. George Robert Gissing There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house. Joe Ryan Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. William Hazlitt My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter. Thomas Helm A dirty book is rarely dusty. Author Unknown As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate! William James You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. Paul Sweeney It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. Oscar Wilde A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul. Franz Kafka Lord! when you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book. Christopher Morley I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage. Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu, Pensées Diverses To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is a pleasure beyond compare. Kenko Yoshida Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures. Jessamyn West I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves. E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951 TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they'll have with twenty-six. Open your child's imagination. Open a book. Author Unknown Books had instant replay long before televised sports. Bern Williams How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. Henry David Thoreau, Walden To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list. John Aikin In reading, a lonely quiet concert is given to our minds; all our mental faculties will be present in this symphonic exaltation. Stéphane Mallarmé Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. James Russell Lowell Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life." Helen Exley There is a wonder in reading Braille that the sighted will never know: to touch words and have them touch you back. Jim Fiebig This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum. Elbert Hubbard A book is to me like a hat or coat - a very uncomfortable thing until the newness has been worn off. Charles B. Fairbanks If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions. Author Unknown Books are the glass of council to dress ourselves by. Bulstrode Whitlock Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. Henry Ward Beecher Reading means borrowing. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life. Jesse Lee Bennett Book lovers never go to bed alone. Author Unknown Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. Harper Lee The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value. Washington Irving When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before. Clifton Fadiman For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble. Francis Bacon A book that is shut is but a block. Thomas Fuller In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. Thomas Carlyle There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book? Marina Tsvetaeva The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived. Howard Pyle No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Medicine for the soul. Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time. E.P. Whipple These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. From each of them goes out its own voice... and just as the touch of a button on our set will fill the room with music, so by taking down one of these volumes and opening it, one can call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and hear him speaking to us, mind to mind, heart to heart. Gilbert Highet "Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are" is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread. François Mauriac Books are embalmed minds. Bovee Children don't read to find their identity, to free themselves from guilt, to quench the thirst for rebellion or to get rid of alienation. They have no use for psychology... They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff... When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish illusions. Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1978 I divide all readers into two classes; those who read to remember and those who read to forget. William Lyon Phelps The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence and exacting work; and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs. Henry Ward Beecher Nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind. Charles Dudley Warner If you have never said "Excuse me" to a parking meter or bashed your shins on a fireplug, you are probably wasting too much valuable reading time. Sherri Chasin Calvo The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters. Ross MacDonald The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them. Samuel Butler I have friends whose society is delightful to me; they are persons of all countries and of all ages; distinguished in war, in council, and in letters; easy to live with, always at my command. Francesco Petrarch Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one. Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta, "Book Buying" To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. Edmund Burke The art of reading is in great part that of acquiring a better understanding of life from one's encounter with it in a book. André Maurois A house without books is like a room without windows. Heinrich Mann From my point of view, a book is a literary prescription put up for the benefit of someone who needs it. S.M. Crothers He fed his spirit with the bread of books. Edwin Markham Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book. John Ruskin Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death hath no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever. J. Swartz A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counsellor, a multitude of counsellors. Henry Ward Beecher Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes. John LeCarre "To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of quality and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own." —Lord Foppington in the Relapse An ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck with this bright sally of his Lordship, that he has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality. At the hazard of losing some credit on this head, I must confess that I dedicate no inconsiderable portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me. Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia, 1820 Far more seemly were it for thee to have thy study full of books, than thy purse full of money. John Lyly The wise man reads both books and life itself. Lin Yutang I like intellectual reading. It's to my mind what fiber is to my body. Grey Livingston I often derive a peculiar satisfaction in conversing with the ancient and modern dead, - who yet live and speak excellently in their works. My neighbors think me often alone, - and yet at such times I am in company with more than five hundred mutes - each of whom, at my pleasure, communicates his ideas to me by dumb signs - quite as intelligently as any person living can do by uttering of words. Laurence Sterne You may have tangible wealth untold; When a new book is published, read an old one. Samuel Rogers He who lends a book is an idiot. He who returns the book is more of an idiot. Arabic Proverb Borrowers of books - those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, "The Two Races of Men," 1822 The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing. Lord Chesterfield An ordinary man can... surround himself with two thousand books... and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy. Augustine Birrell Books - the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity. George Steiner We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages. Ralph Waldo Emerson From every book invisible threads reach out to other books; and as the mind comes to use and control those threads the whole panorama of the world's life, past and present, becomes constantly more varied and interesting, while at the same time the mind's own powers of reflection and judgment are exercised and strengthened. Helen E. Haines To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. W. Somerset Maugham How vast an estate it is that we came into as the intellectual heirs of all the watchers and searchers and thinkers and singers of the generations that are dead! What a heritage of stored wealth! What perishing poverty of mind we should be left in without it! J.N. Larned Books are a uniquely portable magic. Stephen King That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit. Amos Bronson Alcott The multitude of books is making us ignorant. Voltaire There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book; books are well written or badly written. Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Richard Steele, Tatler, 1710 The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts. Oliver Wendell Holmes One to whom books are as strangers has not yet learned to live. He is a solitary, though he dwell amid a vast population. On the other hand, he to whom books are as friends possesses a Key to the Garden of Delights, where the purest pleasures are open for his entertainment, and where he has for his companions the master minds of all the ages. Charles Noel Douglas, "Introduction," Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical My imagination doesn't requires anything more of the book than to provide a framework within which it can wander. Alphonse Daudet Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West. E.M. Forster Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! A message to us from the dead, - from human souls whom we never saw, who lived perhaps thousands of miles away; and yet these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. Charles Kingsley Let your bookcases and your shelves be your gardens and your pleasure-grounds. Pluck the fruit that grows therein, gather the roses, the spices, and the myrrh. Judah Ibn Tibbon One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind. Ishmael Reed, Writin' is Fightin': Thirty-Seven Years of Boxing on Paper, p.186 Books are a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, from the vulgarities of the actual world. Walter Pater No person who can read is ever successful at cleaning out an attic. Ann Landers That place that does contain A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint... What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. Henry David Thoreau To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one. Chinese Saying O for a Booke and a shdie nooke, eyther in-a-doore or out; Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me. Anatole France A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading. Jeremy Collier Books are immortal sons deifying their sires. Plato No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. Mary Wortley Montagu I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it. Woodrow Wilson Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books. Henry David Thoreau It often requires more courage to read some books than it does to fight a battle. Sutton Elbert Griggs Many persons read and like fiction. It does not tax the intelligence and the intelligence of most of us can so ill afford taxation that we rightly welcome any reading matter which avoids this. Rose Macaulay Americans like fat books and thin women. Russell Baker What holy cities are to nomadic tribes - a symbol of race and a bond of union - great books are to the wandering souls of men: they are the Meccas of the mind. G.E. Woodberry God be thanked for books! they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. W.E. Channing A good book is always on tap; it may be decanted and drunk a hundred times, and it is still there for further imbibement. Holbrook Jackson A blessed companion is a book, - a book that, fitly chosen, is a lifelong friend,... a book that, at a touch, pours its heart into our own. Douglas Jerrold Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay. William Styron A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with "a sort of greedy enjoyment," as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was "saturated with the bouquet of silence." Holbrook Jackson 'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude, 1870 We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate. Henry Miller Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you. Harold Bloom One of the advantages of reading books is that you get to play with someone else's imaginary friends, at all hours of the night. Dr. SunWolf, professorsunwolf.com The book of the moment often has immense vogue, while the book of the age, which comes in its company from the press, lies unnoticed; but the great book has its revenge. It lives to see its contemporary pushed up shelf by shelf until it finds its final resting-place in the garret or the auction room.- Hamilton Wright Mabie The time to read is any time: no apparatus, no appointment of time and place, is necessary. It is the only art which can be practised at any hour of the day or night, whenever the time and inclination comes, that is your time for reading; in joy or sorrow, health or illness. -Holbrook Jackson I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments.- Lord Chesterfield This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication.- Logan Pearsall Smith Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. -William Ewart Gladstone Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.-Jeremy Collier Literature Quotes Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself. If literature isn't everything, it's not worth a single hour of someone's trouble. Every man's memory is his private literature. The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation. It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others. This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others. The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature. We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion. I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics. Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature. It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics. Only the more rugged mortals should attempt to keep up with current literature. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity. Writing Quotes So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it. Harold Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete, 1948 The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. Anaïs Nin You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. Ray Bradbury Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. E.L. Doctorow A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears i from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. Charles Peguy And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all. Richard Wright, American Hunger, 1977 I try to leave out the parts that people skip. Elmore Leonard If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. Toni Morrison What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers. Logan Pearsall Smith, "All Trivia," Afterthoughts, 1931 The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. Norbet Platt It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Vita Sackville-West Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. Sharon O'Brien Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. Mark Twain I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. James Michener The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. Mark Twain The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. Isaac Bashevis Singer Don't be too harsh to these poems until they're typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction. Dylan Thomas, letter to Vernon Watkins, March 1938 Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. William Wordsworth The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. Vladimir Nabakov Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. Anton Chekhov Easy reading is damn hard writing. Nathaniel Hawthorne Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. Terri Guillemets Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. Orson Scott Card A metaphor is like a simile. Author Unknown The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Mark Twain, letter to George Bainton, 1888 (Thanks, Andrew & Barbara), variation of Josh Billings' "Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az much difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug." The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. Jules Renard, "Diary," February 1895 Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. Author Unknown A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer. Karl Kraus A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose. Samuel McChord Crothers, "Every Man's Natural Desire to Be Somebody Else," The Dame School of Experience, 1920 When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can. Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842 I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. James Michener Writing is my time machine, takes me to the precise time and place I belong. Jeb Dickerson, www.howtomatter.com If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. Isaac Asimov I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. Peter De Vries Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. Nathaniel Hawthorne A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote. Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind. Catherine Drinker Bowen, Atlantic, December 1957 To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make. Truman Capote, McCall's, November 1967 A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. John K. Hutchens, New York Herald Tribune, 10 September 1961 I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. English Professor (Name Unknown), Ohio University Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. Hannah Arendt It seems to me that the problem with diaries, and the reason that most of them are so boring, is that every day we vacillate between examining our hangnails and speculating on cosmic order. Ann Beattie, Picturing Will, 1989 For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain [and] the noise of battle. John Cheever Do not put statements in the negative form. No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907 Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. Gene Fowler Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. Francis Bacon The expression "to write something down" suggests a descent of thought to the fingers whose movements immediately falsify it. William Gass, "Habitations of the Word," Kenyon Review, October 1984 Be obscure clearly. E.B. White Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. Flannery O'Connor It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page. Joan Baez When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence. Samuel Butler Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn't we? Terri Guillemets Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on almost any subject he may. Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversation: Diogenes and Plato Let me walk through the fields of paper When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man. Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670 Every writer I know has trouble writing. Joseph Heller Writer's block is a disease for which there is no cure, only respite. Terri Guillemets A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one. Baltasar Gracián, translated from Spanish When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. Enrique Jardiel Poncela I asked Ring Lardner the other day how he writes his short stories, and he said he wrote a few widely separated words or phrases on a piece of paper and then went back and filled in the spaces. Harold Ross When you are describing, Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. Sholem Asch The ablest writer is only a gardener first, and then a cook: his tasks are, carefully to select and cultivate his strongest and most nutritive thoughts; and when they are ripe, to dress them, wholesomely, and yet so that they may have a relish. Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827 If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. Lord Byron If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. Anais Nin I'd rather be caught holding up a bank than stealing so much as a two-word phrase from another writer. Jack Smith An incurable itch for scribbling takes possession of many, and grows inveterate in their insane breasts. Juvenal, Satires Writing is a struggle against silence. Carlos Fuentes Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it. Jack London, "Getting Into Print," 1905 The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation. Elias Canetti It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader. If you do not believe in the characters or the story you are doing at that moment with all your mind, strength, and will, if you don't feel joy and excitement while writing it, then you're wasting good white paper, even if it sells, because there are other ways in which a writer can bring in the rent money besides writing bad or phony stories. Paul Gallico, "Confessions of a Story Writer," 1946 All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients. Ralph Waldo Emerson Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper. Isaac Bashevis Singer One hates an author that's all author. George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Beppo" What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window. Burton Rascoe The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes. Agatha Christie An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners' names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought. Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else. Etty Hillesum, quoted in Ten Fun Things to Do Before You Die by Karol Jackowski A writer's mind seems to be situated partly in the solar plexus and partly in the head. Ethel Wilson Publication - is the auction of the Mind of Man. Emily Dickinson If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves. Don Marquis There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters. Miguel de Cervantes Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake. E.L. Doctorow The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight. Ralph Waldo Emerson A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. Henry David Thoreau You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. Arthur Polotnik An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff. Adlai Stevenson, as quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs The first goal of writing is to have one's words read successfully. Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers. T.S. Eliot What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told. André Gide Some authors write with a grave ink, of a dramatic pen dipped into their dark souls. Terri Guillemets Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free. Samuel Johnson Lists are the butterfly nets that catch my fleeting thoughts... Betsy Cañas Garmon, www.wildthymecreative.com A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident. W. Somerset Maugham, Summing Up, 1938 They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works. Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621 The road to hell is paved with adverbs. Stephen King It is plagiarism when you take something out of a book and use it as your own. If you take it out of several books then it is research. Quoted by Ralph Foss, 1932 (Thanks, Garson O'Toole of quoteinvestigator.com!) My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin. Karl Kraus As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out. Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894 As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall. Virginia Woolf Caress your phrase tenderly: it will end by smiling at you. Anatole France I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension. Norman Mailer When I don't make any progress, it is because I have bumped into the wall of language. Then I draw back with a bloody head. And would like to go on. Karl Kraus, translated from German by Harry Zohn To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all. Lord Byron Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. Theodore Dreiser, 1900 It is the little writer rather than the great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is never really doing anything else. Havelock Ellis Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason. They made no such demand upon those who wrote them. Charles Caleb Colton You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. Saul Bellow Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. Author Unknown, commonly misattributed to Samuel Johnson (*) (Thanks, Frank Lynch) How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 19 August 1851 I am a man, and alive... For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog. D.H. Lawrence, preface to Shestov, All Things Are Possible, 1938 The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible. Washington Irving Ink surrounds me all the time Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. From the movie Finding Forrester It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write. Sinclair Lewis Being an author is being in charge of your own personal insane asylum. Terri Guillemets [T]he author writes as a race-horse runs, for the sake of it. He feels like it, and kindles just because he enjoys burning. The Living Way, edited and published by S.D. Simonds, Volume III, 1872, referring to Joaquin Miller and his poem "Isles of the Amazons" Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? Friedrich Nietzsche It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers; nor can the nicest judgment always distinguish accidental similitude from artful imitation. Samuel Johnson, 1751 Writing is both mask and unveiling. E.B. White Dialogue is not just quotation. It is grimaces, pauses, adjustments of blouse buttons, doodles on a napkin, and crossings of legs. Jerome Stern, Making Shapely Fiction, 1991 Let's hope the institution of marriage survives its detractors, for without it there would be no more adultery and without adultery two thirds of our novelists would stand in line for unemployment checks. Peter S. Prescott It's not plagiarism - I'm recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do. Uniek Swain True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance, Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. Franz Kafka An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. Gustave Flaubert If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don't remove it - I might be writing in my dreams. Terri Guillemets There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write. Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one's own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one's pen. Leo Tolstoy The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. Samuel Johnson Authors are magpies, echoing each other's words and seizing avidly on anything that glitters. Bergen Evans What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thought; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. But always the rarest, those streaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach. Logan Pearsall Smith No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published. Russell Lynes A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order. Jean Luc Godard Loafing is the most productive part of a writer's life. James Norman Hall Whatever an author puts between the two covers of his book is public property; whatever of himself he does not put there is his private property, as much as if he had never written a word. Gail Hamilton Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought? Joan Didion I could give you a number of examples to show how widespread has been this practice of mutual pilfering among the authors of our old literature... by transferring something of theirs to his own immortal work he [Virgil] has ensured that the memory of these old writers—whom, as the tastes of today show, we are already beginning to deride as well as to neglect—should not wholly perish. Macrobius, Saturnalia I write because I'm afraid to say some things out loud. Gordon Atkinson, reallivepreacher.com Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially. A. Bronson Alcott The artist's only responsibility is his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one... If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate: The "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies. William Faulkner, quoted in M. Cowley, Writers at Work, 1958 A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades, 1947 The reason why many people are so fond of using superlatives, is, they are so positive that the poor positive is not half positive enough for them. Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827 [A] great writer creates his precursors. Jorge Luis Borges, Other Inquisitions, 1937-1952, translated from Spanish Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. Colette, Casual Chance, 1964 Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. Jules Renard, Journal, 10 April 1895 The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. Ray Bradbury Being an author is having angels whisper in your ear - and devils, too. Terri Guillemets Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all. Franklin P. Adams, Half a Loaf, 1927 You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world. G.K. Chesterton The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes. André Gide, Journals, 1894 Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant. Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic, 1963 The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax. Alfred Kazin, Think, February 1963 i never think at all when i write Our passions shape our books; repose writes them in the intervals. Proust, The Past Recaptured, 1927 Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. Samuel Johnson, "Recalling the Advice of a College Tutor," Boswell, Life of Johnson, 1791 An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate. Chateaubriand, Le Génie du Christianisme, 1802 Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you. Mae West The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads. William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958 There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as do exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft. Jessamyn West, Saturday Review, 21 September 1957 I hate writing, I love having written. Dorothy Parker, may not be exact wording Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. George Orwell, "Why I Write," 1947 (Thanks, Jennifer) One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. Hart Crane He that uses many words for the explaining any subject doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. John Ray Writing is a product of silence. Carrie Latet A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. G.K. Chesterton Novelists... fashioning nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence. Fay Weldon Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. Rainer Maria Rilke Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such. Samuel Butler It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. Robert Benchley No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman. Van Wyck Brooks The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it. Ernest Hemingway, interview in Paris Review, Spring 1958 The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. Samuel Johnson For, to speak my private Opinion, I am for every Man's working upon his own Materials, and producing only what he can find within himself, which is commonly a better Stock than the Owner knows it to be. I think Flowers of Wit ought to spring, as those in a Garden do, from their own Root and Stem, without Foreign Assistance. I would have a Man's Wit rather like a Fountain, that feeds it self invisibly, than a River, that is supply'd by several Streams from abroad. The best style is the style you don't notice. Somerset Maugham There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes. William Makepeace Thackeray I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head. John Updike When I state myself, as the representative of the verse, it does not mean me, but a supposed person. Emily Dickinson Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible. Leo Tolstoy Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Divergent Quotes Tomorrow at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them. Trisp. 2 They should perplex me. I should wonder what courage—which is the virtue they most value—has to do with a metal ring through your nostril. Instead my eyes cling to them wherever they go. Tris(on watching the Dauntless jump from the train) p. 7 Divergence is extremely dangerous. Torip. 23 It’s my choice now, no matter what the test says. Abnegation. Dauntless. Erudite. Divergent. Trisp. 23 I hear a train horn, so faint it could easily be wind whistling through an alleyway. But I know it when I hear it. It sounds like the Dauntless, calling me to them. Trisp. 30 “…Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places. We should be thankful that we know better.” Mr. Priorp. 35 “Beatrice…We should think of our family…But. But we must also think of ourselves.” Calebp. 36 “I love you. No matter what.” Mrs. Priorto Beatrice at the Choosing Ceremony p. 41 I am selfish. I am brave. Trisp. 47 I would rather be dead than empty, like the factionless. Trisp. 54 I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today ti makes me brave. Trisp. 57 A new place, a new name. I can be remade here. “Tris,” I say firmly. Trisp. 60 “First jumper--Tris!” Fourp. 60 Four sets his hand on my back and says, “Welcome to Dauntless.” “The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy!” Fourshouts p. 65 We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear. Fourp. 77 ...you are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you’re prepared to defend yourself. Fourp. 77 Statistically speaking...you should have hit the target at least once by now, even by accident... I think you’re actually defying nature. Willp. 79 There is power in controlling something that can do so much damage--in controlling something, period. Maybe I do belong here. (first day firing a gun) Trisp. 79 Mom used to say that politeness is deception in pretty packaging. Christinap. 81 You aren’t going to be able to make me look pretty, you know. Tris, Who cares about pretty? I’m going for noticeable. Christinap. 86-87 It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else. Trisp. 87 Beatrice was a girl I saw in stolen moments at the mirror, who kept quiet at the dinner table. This is someone whose eyes claim mine and don’t release me; this is Tris. Trisp. 87 Four leaving us makes me nervous. Leaving us with Eric is like hiring a babysitter who spends his time sharpening knives. Trisp. 97 Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it’s so important that we don’t rely on it. Mr. Prior p.102 Maybe there is some abnegatin in everyone, even if they don’t know it. Well, in everyone but Peter. Trisp. 120 The Dauntless guards close the gate and lock it behind them. The lock is on the outside. I bite my lip. Why would they lock the gate from the outside and not the inside? It almost seems like they don’t want to keep something out; they want to keep us in. Trisp. 128 Something about him (Four) makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames. Trisp. 143 I am aware of how little space there is between us--six inches at most. That space feels charged with electricity. I feel like it should be smaller. Tris(after Four helps her down from the Ferris wheel) p. 150 For the first time since I beat Molly, guilt pinches my gut. If Eric thinks I did something right, I must have done it wrong. Trisp. 176 My mother was Dauntless. Trisp. 188 ...I think it’s important to protect people. To stand up for people. Like you did for me. That’s what the Dauntless are supposed to do right? That’s what courage is. Not...hurting people for no reason. Alp. 190 ‘We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.’ Willquoting from the Dauntless manifesto p. 206 She’s Dauntless through and through. Uriah(about Tris) p. 220 I throw my arms out to the side and imagine that I am flying... My heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can’t scream and I can’t breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein, and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in my body as if charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline. Trisp. 221 (the feeling of the zip line from the top of the old Hancock building 100 stories high) A crowd of members stands below. They grasp one another’s arms forming a net of limbs beneath me. In order to get down, I have to trust them to catch me. I have to accept that these people are mine, and I am theirs. It is a braver act than sliding down the zip line. Trisp. 222 I know why my father said the Dauntless were a pack of madmen. He didn’t--couldn’t--understand the kind of camaraderie that forms only after you’ve all risked your lives together. Trisp. 223 We are not the same. But we are, somehow, one. Trisp. 223 (about fellow Dauntless) Be brave Tris. The first time always the hardest. Fourp. 232 (first simulation, stage two of initiation) I used to think the Dauntless were fearless. That is how they seemed, anyway. But maybe what I saw as fearless was actually fear under control. Trisp. 239 The expression warms his eyes enough that I forget he’s my instructor. He’s just a boy, talking casually, walking me to the door. Tris(about Four) p. 239 You look good Tris. an intoxicated Fourp. 249 I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this is free. Trisp. 250 You manipulated the simulation; you’re Divergent. I’ll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you’ll figure out how to hide it during the simulations! Fourp. 255 Are you like me? I ask silently. Are you Divergent? Trisp. 265 I hear my heartbeat. I have been looking at him too long, but then, he has been looking back, and I feel like we are both trying to say something the other can’t hear, though I could be imagining it. Too long--and now, even longer, my heart even louder, his tranquil eyes swallowing me whole. Trisp. 265 I’m going to shoot a muffin off Marlene’s head. Uriahp. 271 You belong here, you know that? You belong with us. It’ll be over soon, so just hold on, okay? Fourp. 274 I don’t want to say this, but I feel like I have to. It is more important for you to be safe than right for the time being. Understand? … But please, when you see an opportunity...Ruin them. Fourp. 286-287 I understand why you’re worried, Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward...So now we all know, that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation. Fourp. 298 Courageous? Courageous would have been admitting weakness and leaving Dauntless, no matter what shame accompanied it. Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine. Trisp. 308-309 ...it’s when you’re acting selflessly that you are at your bravest. Fourp. 311 Jeanine’s so smart you can see it even before she says anything. Like..a walking, talking computer. Willp. 317 It’s easy to be brave when they’re not my fears. Trisp. 331 I watched you because I like you. Tobias337 I like how you look. You’re deadly smart. You’re brave. Tobiasp. 338 For a few minutes we kiss, deep in the chasm, with the roar of water all around us. And when we rise, hand in hand, I realize that if we had both chosen differently, we might have ended up doing the same thing, in a safer place, in gray clothes instead of black ones. Trisp. 338 He told me once to be brave, and though I have stood still while knives spun toward my face and jumped off a roof, I never thought I would need bravery in the small moments of life. I do. Tris(during an intimate moment with Tobias) p. 373 Are you asking me to undress, Tris? Tobiasp. 404 I think we’ve made a mistake, ...We’ve all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don’t want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart,and honest... I continually struggle with kindness. Tobiasp. 405 You’re my daughter. I don’t care about the factions...Look where they got us. Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again. Natalie Priorp. 441 I feel like someone breathed new air into my lungs. I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless. I am Divergent. Trisp. 442 Be brave, Beatrice. I love you. Natalie Prior(before sacrificing her own life to save her daughter) p. 443 Eric called Al’s suicide brave, and he was wrong. My mother’s death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn’t just that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option. Trisp. 451 As of yesterday, I technically became Dauntless, but I don’t feel like one. And I am not Abnegation, either. I guess I am what I have always been. Not Dauntless, not Abnegation, not factionless. Divergent. Trisp. 453-454 Did I shoot him in the leg? … No. He walks. Tris(reaction to Caleb questioning Peter’s ability to walk after Tris shot him) p. 465 Since he saved me from the attack, I have associated his smell with safety, so as long as I focus on it, I feel safe now. Tris(about Tobias) p. 484 “Maybe I’m already sure, “ he says, “and I just don’t want to frighten you.” I laugh a little. “Then you should know better.” “Fine,” he says. “Then I love you.” Tobias and Trisp. 486 I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave. I suppose that now, I must become more than either. Tris p. 487 But what is better than cookies or books or doing silly stuff is Jesus Christ. If you believe in Jesus Christ put this in your profile and don't just ignore this, because in the Bible it says if you deny me, I will deny you in front of my Father in the gates of Heaven.Jesus says love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so while you post things think about loving each other. | |||||||
1. The Limits »The Earth has gone through World War 3 and America is in ruins. The new one world government has rules upon rules. If you disobey too much or in some cases, once, you are sent to the Prison of the America, where you try to live your way out of prison. Join one young man on his fight for freedom and ultimately, his life.Fiction: Sci-Fi - Rated: K+ - English - Sci-Fi - Chapters: 2 - Words: 775 - Published: 1-6-132. Rosie McDonald: The Reader » reviewsThis is about children with powers. They all have special names such as Reader, which is what Rosie is.Fiction: Sci-Fi - Rated: K+ - English - Sci-Fi - Chapters: 3 - Words: 1,469 - Reviews: 3 - Updated: 12-30-12 - Published: 5-20-12
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