In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find, if it's a good novel, that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed. ~Ursula K. Le Guin
#quotes #ursula-k-le-guin #reading #novels
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No novel has ever changed anything, as far as I can see. ~Martin Amis
#quotes #martin-amis #novels
But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own. ~Peter Shaffer
#quotes #peter-shaffer #writing #novels
If you believe everything you read, better not read. ~Japanese Proverb
#proverbs #japanses-proverbs #reading #conformity
proverbiosI believe that before anything else I'm a human being; just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them. ~Henrik Ibsen
#quotes #henrik-ibsen #human #believe #books #thinking
To learn a belief without the belief is to sing a song without the tune. ~Ursula K. Le Guin
#quotes #ursula-k-le-guin #music #knowledge #faith
I grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to. ~Charlize Theron
#quotes #charlize-theron #travel #world #south-africa
All of the good, weird stories I've written are based on things I've dredged out of my subconscious. That's the real stuff. Everything else is fake. ~Ray Bradbury
#quotes #ray-bradbury #stories #subconscious
It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope. ~Ursula K. Le Guin
#quotes #ursula-k-le-guin #imagination #hope #compassion
Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it. ~J. G. Ballard
#quotes #j-g-ballard #writing #selling
My dad says that when I was two or three I used to go out dressed as a different character every day. I remember thinking it was perfectly normal to wear different coloured shoes and carry a pink umbrella. But now I've got a goddaughter of that age; I realise it's not normal at all. ~Alice Eve
#quotes #alice-eve #childhood #clothing
The places I've been, or passed through, or seen at a distance, have had as much an impact on my life as the people I've known. ~Bryan Lee O'Malley
#quotes #bryan-lee-o-malley #life #places
Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to. ~Martin Luther
#quotes #martin-luther #evil #alcohol
I've been taking my time now between projects looking for stuff that has a little bit more substance, that isn't surface. Some of the films that I've done in the past really were surface ~Christian Slater
#quotes #christian-slater
Normal is such a hard word to use, because everyone's idea of normal is different. Real is what the word is. I think you either live a real life or you live a weird celebrity pseudolife. I think I lead a really real life. ~Sarah Michelle Gellar
#quotes #sarah-michelle-gellar #life #ideas
I've never had a bank account in Switzerland since 1984. Why would the Swiss do this to me? Maybe the Swiss are trying to divert attention from the Holocaust gold scandal. ~Benazir Bhutto
#quotes #benazir-bhutto
The morning after my high-school graduation found me up early job hunting. The dream of college I put on the back burner. ~Martha Reeves
#quotes #martha-reeves
Maybe love was superstition, a prayer we said to keep the truth of loneliness at bay. I tilted my head back. The stars looked like they were close together, when really they were millions of miles apart. In the end, maybe love just meant longing for something impossibly bright and forever out of reach. ~Leigh Bardugo
#quotes #leigh-bardugo #love
It's that I have a good personality and am a good tennis player. ~Anna Kournikova
#quotes #anna-kournikova #sports #tennis
I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different. ~Ridley Scott
#quotes #ridley-scott #believe #movies
With those people, I'm very far apart, because I believe that government access to communications and stored records is valuable when done under tightly controlled conditions which protect legitimate privacy interests. ~Dorothy Denning
#quotes #dorothy-denning #government #privacy
A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. ~George Bernard Shaw
#quotes #george-bernard-shaw #pessimism
I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders. ~Jewish Proverb
#proverbs #jewish-proverbs