Author Quotes

Not in hewn stones, nor in well-fashioned beams,
Not in the noblest of the builder's dreams,
But in courageous men of purpose great,
There is the fortress, there the living State.

My idea of marriage, as of every other partnership,... is that each member shall contribute to it his or her personality, unrepressed and uncoerced. Thus, and only thus, we obtain the most complex synthesis possible, which may well surpass in beauty, as it surely does in interest and human value, the separate elements of such an association.

When you collaborate with other people, you tend to regard your own individual contribution as the most important.

Yang Jiang
Yang Jiang
He called for his urinal and having made water in it, he cast it, & viewed it (as Physicians do) a prettie while; at last he swore soberly, he saw nothing in that man's water, but that he might live.

John Harington (writer)
John Harington (writer)
It does not seem possible to think of oneself as normal without thinking that some other kind of person is pathological,

I have so fiercely dreamed of you And walked so far and spoken of you so, Loved a shade of you so hard That now I've no more left of you.

I need to feel that the language in my poems is alive, in the sense of talking on the phone to a friend sharing gossip.

Blood is thicker than water, of course, but it isn't ink to write your will with.

Who would have thought something that happened that long ago could have such power?

Alice Sebold
Alice Sebold
Indian time conveys an old grasp of time and life, perceived and experienced collectively by Indian people.... From the edge of Indian time overlooking infinity, there is acute perception and perspective.

Things are really weird around here, and most of us don't know everything. Half of everything.

James Dashner
James Dashner
They say that there is no reality before it has been given shape by words rules regulations. They say that in what concerns them everything has to be remade starting from basic principles. They say that in the first place the vocabulary of every language is to be examined, modified, turned upside down, that every word must be screened.

You must not allow yourself to be advised, cautioned, influenced, persuaded

Minnie Maddern Fiske
Minnie Maddern Fiske
The moments of beauty, the moments when you feel blessed, are only moments; but memory and imagination, treasuring them, can string them together... Everything else passes away; that which you love remains.

In the end you will be your own undoing. You can't escape you.

A gaggle of old ladies is glued to the window at the end of the hall like children or jailbirds. They're spidery and frail, their hair as fine as mist. Most of them are a good decade younger than me, and this astounds me. Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.--There are five of them now, white headed old things huddled together and pointing crooked fingers at the glass.

She was one of those children who cannot help behaving well.

I am not a member of a community or a synagogue. Really, my devotion to writing is my religion. There are other aspects of my religion, but mainly it is to be with myself, for many hours.

Aharon Appelfeld
Aharon Appelfeld
The combination of song, prayer, and poetry is a natural form of expression for many Navajo people. A person who is able to 'talk beautifully' is well thought of and considered wealthy...

Luci Tapahonso
Luci Tapahonso
While I was happy enough to pray to any god, knowing that they were simply different faces created by men, of one indivisible truth.

To callow wings no flight is too high to attempt. At sixteen all things are possible.

The difficulty lay with the mind accommodating itself to the notion of the plane, with all its weight, defying gravity, staying aloft. She understood the aerodynamics of flight, could comprehend the laws of physics that made flight possible, but her heart, at the moment, would have none of it. Her heart knew the plane could fall out of the sky.

My plan is to ignore this ageing business and hope it goes away. But if these bags under my eyes get any bigger, Ryanair will make me pay extra for them.

Be careful whom you choose to hate. The small and the vulnerable own a protection great enough, if you could but see it, to melt you into jelly. Beware those who reside beneath the shadow of the Wings.

My boyhood saw
Greek islands floating over Harvard Square.