Novelist Quotes

Cocoa-buttered girls were stretched out on the public beach in apparently random alignments, but maybe if a weather satellite zoomed in on one of those bodies and then zoomed back out, the photos would show the curving beach itself was another woman, a fractal image made up of the particulate sunbathers. All the beaches pressed together might form female landmasses, female continents, female planets and galaxies. No wonder men felt tense.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

A tall young man sped swiftly up the wide stone steps leading to the doorway of a mansion in one of Chicago's most fashionable avenues.

George Barr McCutcheon

There was a thick carpet upon the floor, a sofa piled with cushions in one corner, and several other articles of furniture. The walls, however, were uncovered and were stained with damp. A great pink fungus stood out within a few inches of the bed, a grim mixture of exquisite colouring and loathsome imperfections. The atmosphere was fetid.

E. Phillips Oppenheim

We are a nation of children letting horrible things happen, and flunking Calc.

The more you rely on what you need, the more you become that which you rely on.

Catherine Asaro

So, without saying anything to the others, it made its way to the farthest corner of the meadow and began to toast an imaginary muffin. That was always the best way to unwind when things got to be too much for it.

Thomas M. Disch

Most courage comes from being too tired and hungry to be afraid anymore.

Ysabeau S. Wilce

Everything passes. Joy. Pain. The moment of triumph; the sigh of despair. Nothing lasts forever - not even this.

Paul Stewart (writer)

"You know, Mouse," [Tabby] said, "a brilliant cat like me should have smart friends; people who can count to more than four." "I can count to more than four," answered Mouse, very offended. "And I can do hard sums, and I know geography and history, and I can knit and..."

What is freedom, in the end, but that no one cares any longer to try to restrain us?

Theoretical webs, dirty webs, fusty webs, old and shrivelling away into nothingness, a fine dust.Who needs that kind of stuff. Far far better getting out into the open air and doing it, actually doing it, something solid and concrete and unconceptualisable.

To write a poem is like trying to catch a lizard without its tail falling off.

Lawrence Durrell

When we strike a balance between the challenge of an activity and our skill at performing it, when the rhythm of the work itself feels in sync with our pulse, when we know that what we're doing matters, we can get totally absorbed in our task. That is happiness.

And they need not cause you grief. As my Highland grandmother said-and she had the Sight-Tis not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living! And she was a wise woman. The dead are beyond your help or mine, poor things. But the living need us. Thirty souls at the least, Phryne, are still on that island to praise God who might now be angels-or devils.

Kerry Greenwood

People without curiosity are like houses without books: there's something unsettling about them.

If New York is the City That Never Sleeps, then Los Angeles is the City That's Always Passed Out on the Couch.

Writing that gets rewritten as the earth moves. If you look at the sky that way, it's this massive shifting poem, or maybe a letter, first written by one author, and then, when the earth moves, annotated by another. So I stare and stare until, one day, I can read it.

Maria Dahvana Headley

For parents to restrain the inclinations of their children in marriage is an usurped power.

You hardly know me. Why do you want me to come with you?' 'Who knows? Perhaps you remind me just a bit of -' 'Someone you used to know?' Alec interjected skeptically. 'Someone I used to be.

Lynn Flewelling

Still, not much of a reason to live, is it? The fear of being punished for killing yourself.

The Arctic Ocean encircles with a belt of eternal ice the desert confines of Siberia and North America--the uttermost limits of the Old and New worlds, separated by the narrow, channel, known as Behring's Straits.

So this is one of those times when life is just handing you something, telling you what to do, which way to go. So enjoy it. It'll be fun. I guarantee. I can't guarantee we'll find the goddamn thing, but it'll be interesting. Then if we do find it - if we do- the payoff's huge.

There has come a time when we can no longer remain silent but must speak up for our country which is being sold, abused, mined, depleted, drained, overworked, over-loved, its plants and animals becoming endangered and exterminated faster than we can renew them. Our country is silent, so we must speak and act to save it.

So intense was his sexual frustration that it had begun to feel like a life-threatening illness: testicular gout, libidinal gangrene.

Despite disappointments, the Christian is obligated to pray for the sick because we are bidden to do so and because the crumb of our caring is but a morsel broken from the whole loaf of the Father's infinite and tender love.

Catherine Marshall