Quote Board

"There is one myth about writers that I have always felt was particularly pernicious and untruthful...the myth of the 'lonely writer,' the myth that writing is a lonely occupation, involving much suffering because, supposedly, the writer exists in a state of sensitivity which cuts him off, or even raises him above, or casts him below the community around him. This is a common cliche, a hangover probably from the romantic period and the idea of the artist as Sufferer and Rebel...I suppose there have been enough genuinely lonely suffering novelists to make this seem a reasonable myth, but there is every reason to suppose that such cases are a result of less admirable qualities in these writers, qualities which have nothing to do with the vocation itself...unless the writer has gone utterly out of his mind, his aim is still communication, and communication suggests talking inside community." - Flannery O'Connor

"...it all goes back to the fundamental rule of creative endeavor, and life is if nothing else a creative endeavor: Show, don't tell." - Neil Patrick Harris, Choose Your Own Autobiography

"Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire!" - C.S. Lewis, as quoted by Diana Pavlac Glyer in The Company They Keep

"[Hugo] Dyson was a man of unusually bold and lively character. Warren Lewis describes him as 'a man who gives the impression of being made of quick silver: he pours himself into a room on a cataract of words and gestures, and you are caught up in the stream -- but after the first plunge, it is exhilarating.'" Diana Pavlac Glyer, The Company They Keep

*****

"'This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on the turn of a die...But a man's whole life you sniff at and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft.'

'Not all men are destined for greatness,' I reminded him.

'Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?'

'This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.'

'No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?'" - Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin

*****

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." - G.K. Chesterton

"Fairytales are more than true -- not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." G.K. Chesterton 

"Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic." - Frida Kahlo

"Hooray. He's kicked the ball. Now the ball's over there. That man has it now. That's an interesting development. Maybe he'll kick the ball. He has indeed and apparently that deserves a round of applause." Moss, IT Crowd

"Coffee smells like magic and fairy tales." - Allison Czarnecki

"The moment where you doubt you can fly, you cease for ever being able to do it."  - J. M. Barrie

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." J.K. Rowling

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough." - Ernest Hemingway

"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears." - Nelson Mandela

"People who love to eat are always the best people." - Julia Child

"People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for." - Harper Lee

"The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea." - Isak Dinesen