Everything around us is made up of energy. To attract positive things in your life, start by giving off positive energy.
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As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker, so an unsuccessful author turns critic
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The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.
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A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
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The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventhday Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor whosees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.
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Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.
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To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all. A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honorable to which a man can be called?
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It is my belief that the writer, the free-lance author, should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives. It is easy enough, and always profitable, to rail away at national enemies beyond the sea, at foreign powers beyond our borders who question the prevailing order. But the moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home; to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own culture. If the writer is unwilling to fill this part, then the writer should abandon pretense and find another line of work: become a shoe repairman, a brain surgeon, a janitor, a cowboy, a nuclear physicist, a bus driver.
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If you don't have a smile, I'll give you one of mine.
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As for the author, he is profoundly unaware of what the classical or romantic genre might consist of.... In literature, as in all things, ther...
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Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
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The first who attracts the eye, the first in enlightenment, in power and in happiness, is the white man, the European, man par excellence; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unfortunate races have neither birth, nor face, nor language, nor mores in common; only their misfortunes look alike. Both occupy an equally inferior position in the country that they inhabit; both experience the effects of tyranny; and if their miseries are different, they can accuse the same author for them.
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The written word can be erased - not so with the spoken word.
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True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to to sic alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered punishment.
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The reality is, just like with adult books, a big name makes for an easier booking. Any time you're booking an author for a four-and-a-half to five-minute segment, if you're dealing with someone who's done television or comes with a track record, they are a known quantity. They know they have to have a funny or a touching story.
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Real art is without irony. Irony distances the author from his material. Irony is a product of something. It's not the reason for doing something. Irony is a cheap shot.
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All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
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I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
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It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.
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Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
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A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude or the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security.
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Before a diamond shows its brilliancy and prismatic colors it has to stand a good deal of cutting and smoothing.
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In Life: You spill your cereal at breakfast, you get fired from your job, your dog dies, and your house burns down. Computer Equivalent: Virus Detected.
In Life: You've finished a 900 page novel. Your life's work. You will be a famous author world-wide; but then, it falls into the lit fireplace. Computer Equivalent: Quitting without saving.
In Life: A solution to all problems is found. World peace is achieved, all conflicts end, and everyone is happy. Computer Equivalent: Ctrl+Alt+Del
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Successful leaders have the courage to take action where others hesitate.
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Religion is meant to be bread for daily use, not cake for special occasions.
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Education is not received. It is achieved.
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Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
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The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-restraint not to meddle with how they do their jobs.
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We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
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The one man who should never attempt an explanation of a poem is its author. If the poem can be improved by it's author's explanations it never should have been published, and if the poem cannot be improved by its author's explanations the explanations are scarcely worth reading.
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