Quote Archive 2008
01-13-08: Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
– Anton Chekhov
What a pity human beings can’t exchange problems. Everyone knows exactly how to solve the other fellow’s.
– Olin Miller
01-20-08: It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
01-27-08: The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
– James Baldwin
02-06-08: Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
– William Safire, Great Rules of Writing
02-09-08: Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.
– Faith Baldwin
02-17-08: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
– William Shakespeare, Macbeth
02-24-08: 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
03-09-08: 3) Agents like a brief selling handle summing up the book's main plot. Which answer most closely resembles the state of your pitch?
A. My book is about a terrible incident involving a lost puppy, a lovelorn woman searching the Internet, and several shirtless firemen. In a crazy twist at the end, the lovelorn woman finds the puppy via the Internet, rescues it, and realizes that one of the shirtless firemen is in love with her. It's a Romantic Thriller.
B. My book is about a terrible incident involving a puppy, a woman, and some firemen. There's some sort of twist at the end involving the puppy, the woman, and a fireman. Fireworks ensue. Not literal fireworks, although I haven't completely ruled them out. I think it might be a Romance.
C. My book is about a pet, a woman, and some guy who's either a cop, a fireman, or something hot like that. Things happen in the book, and characters change. There's conflict, and it's resolved. I've narrowed down the pet to either a dog or a domesticated alligator.
D. My book will have several chapters and a main character who's probably going to be a woman. Or a man. Definitely one of the two.
– Kevin Alexander's Are You Ever Going to Finish That Novel? Quiz
03-16-08: Any event, once it has happened, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.
– Lee Simonson
03-30-08: By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
– Charles Wadsworth
04-06-08: So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
– Peter Drucker
04-13-08: Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
– Michel de Montaigne
04-20-08: I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'
– Saul Bellow
04-27-08: Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
– Jane Wagner
05-04-08: I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.
– Jane Austen
05-12-08: Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.
– George Carlin
06-03-08: The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
– Mark Twain
06-11-08: I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
– Hoban 'Wash' Washburn, Serenity (2005)
06-23-08: The best style is the style you don't notice.
– Somerset Maugham
07-06-08: 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
07-13-08: You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.
– G.K. Chesterton
07-28-08: Household tasks are easier and quicker when they are done by somebody else.
– James Thorpe
08-31-08: A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
– George Bernard Shaw
10-25-08: Greatness is more than potential. It is the execution of that potential. Beyond the raw talent. You need the appropriate training. You need the discipline. You need the inspiration. You need the drive.
– Eric A. Burns
11-17-08: Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer?
– George Price
12-08-08: There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
– Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith
12-14-08: Peter: "Why did you bring me over here for? This is absurd. It's just a dog."
Barrie: "Just a dog? Just? Porthos dreams of being a bear, and you want to dash those dreams by saying he's 'just a dog'? What a horrible, candle-snuffing word. That's like saying, 'He can't climb that mountain; he's just a man.' Or, 'That's not a diamond; it's just a rock.' Just."
Peter: "Fine then. Turn him into a bear. If you can."
Barrie: "With those eyes, my bonny lad, I'm afraid you'd never see it."
– Finding Neverland, 2004