Novelist Quotes

It is a paradox of Life that all species breed past mere replacement. Any paradise of plenty soon fills to become paradise no more.

Farewell to Thee! But not farewell To all my fondest thoughts of Thee; Within my heart they still shall dwell And they shall cheer and comfort me.

I don't wish to treat you like an inferior: that is (correcting himself), I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's advance in experience.

Charlotte Brontë

Look on the grave where thou must sleep Thy last, and strongest foe; It is endurance not to weep, If that repose seem woe.

The muse whispers to you when she chooses, and you can't tell her to come back later, because you quickly learn in this business that she might not come back at all.

At dawn, a railwaywoman
On a country platform whirls on the end of a chain
An irrelevant key, while a young guard makes to wipe
A crumb from her lapel; and see, she smiles
A permissory smile you take in from your corner seat:
A cameo of unrehearsed perfection.

He read the great stone Book whereon is writ The riddle of the world from age to age; Knew the fair marvels of the Zodiac, The stars and their processions; had by heart The elemental truths of chemistry. And zealously, within a mental maze, As dense as that which covered Rosamond, His teacher guarded him against the creeds.

Robert Williams Buchanan

Our bodies can be mobilized by law and police and men with guns, if necessary-but where shall we find that which will make us believe in what we must do, so that we can fight through to victory?

It was an old, old, old, old lady,
And a boy who was half-past three;
And the way they played together
Was beautiful to see.

Henry Cuyler Bunner

The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that.

My experience has been that people who die for causes have few friends in death.

James Lee Burke

It was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

If he desired to know about automobiles, he would, without question, study diligently about automobiles. If his wife desired to be a gourmet cook, she'd certainly study the art of cooking, perhaps even attending a cooking class. Yet, it never seems as obvious to him that if he wants to live in love, he must spend at least as much time as the auto mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.

Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.

There is one class of mind that loves to lean on rules and definitions, and another that discards them as far as possible. A faddist will generally ask for a definition of faddism, and one who is not a faddist will be impatient of being asked to give one.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

I cannot remember a time when I was not enraptured or tortured by words. Always there have been words which, sometimes for their sound alone, sometimes for their sound and sense, I would not use. From a loathing of their grossness or sickliness, their weight or want of weight. Their inexactitude, their feeling of acidity or insipidity. Their action, not only on the intelligence but on the nerves, was instant...

But what was a body? Dust, dung, urine, itches. It was the light within which was important, and it was not significant if that light endured after death, or if the soul was blinded eternally in the endless night of the suspired flesh.

Taylor Caldwell

Quite obviously a cat trusts human beings; but she doesn't trust another cat because she knows better than we do.

'I could kill you like this,' Peter whispered. 'Just press and press until you're dead'.

Orson Scott Card

Sade has a curious ability to render every aspect of sexuality suspect, so that we see how the chaste kiss of the sentimental lover differs only in degree from the vampirish love-bite that draws blood, we understand that a disinterested caress is only quantitatively different from a disinterested flogging.

My heroines are always virgins. They never go to bed without a ring on their fingers; not until page 118 at least.

Barbara Cartland

There comes a moment in your life when, no matter what you do, you bore everybody else. There is only one way to get back the lost prestige. Dying.

Adolfo Bioy Casares

As a general rule of biology, migratory species are less 'aggressive' than sedentary ones.

I don't work with plots. I work with intuition, apprehension, dreams, concepts.

People who wear glasses, without them they always look unfocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed.