Writing Quotes

"A sermon is not to tell you what you are, but what you ought to be, and a novel should tell you not what you are to get, but what you'd like to get." ~ The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time. ~ A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. ~ East of Eden by John Steinbeck Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. ~ Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe "Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so." ~ The Man with the Twisted Lip by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Chronicler's are privileged to enter where they list, to come and go through keyholes, to ride upon the wind, to overcome, in their soarings up and down, all obstacles of distance, time, and place. ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens His experience at the publishers had taught him one important truth, and that is that a big subject does not make a big writer, that all that any mind can contribute to the general thought of the world in literature is what is in itself, and if there is nothing in himself it is vain for the writer to go far afield for a theme. ~ That Fortune by Charles Dudley Warner What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left! ~ The Professor at the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. "You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art." ~ Lothair by Benjamin Disraeli I am . . . joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. ~ David Copperfield by Charles Dickens