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4391 Novelist Quotes

Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.

Affections Another Die Expressions
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A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
Chastity Coats Consists Like
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Life is made up of marble and mud.

Life Made Marble Mud
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Moonlight is sculpture.
Art Moonlight Nature Sculpture
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The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

Cash Ends Family First
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My fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered.

Altogether Beyond Committing Entertain
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Sunlight is painting.
Literature Painting Sunlight Personification
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Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.

About Adding Any Conscience
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A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.
Cover Glove Hand Needs
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We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

After Congratulate Death Dream
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All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.

Affections Battle Brave Contests
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Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
Behind Flies Leaves Over
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Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments.

Earth Monuments Mountains Undecaying
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A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.

Cannot Hero Heroic Unless
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Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.

Apt Inspire Love Qualities
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Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.
Best Friend He Intimate
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What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!

Dark Heart Inexorable Jailer
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A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you've scowled upon.

Article Better Dip Fresh
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What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.

Broad Build Call Estate
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Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Alight Always Beyond Butterfly
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We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
Always Forest Happens Must
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We are not by nature cruel.

Cruel We By Nature
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There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.

Because Case Culture Imitation
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The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

Deepest Early Early Life Imprint
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The most important of all rights is the right to life, and I cannot foresee a day when domesticated animals will be granted that right in law.

Animals Cannot Day Domesticated
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The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.
Consciousness Different Human Human Consciousness
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The idea of writer as sage is pretty much dead today. I would certainly feel very uncomfortable in the role.

Certainly Dead Feel Idea
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Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals.

Animals Change Heart Interest
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In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other.
Close Cruel Hearts Order
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If there were a better, clearer, shorter way of saying what the fiction says, then why not scrap the fiction?

Better Clearer Fiction Saying
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If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart.

About Animal Animals Belong
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I tend to resist invitations to interpret my own fiction.
Fiction Interpret My Own Own
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I see no marks of Wordsworths style of writing or style of thinking in my own work, yet Wordsworth is a constant presence when I write about human beings and their relations to the natural world.

About Beings Constant Human
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I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.

African Because Clearly European
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Elizabeth, Lady C, claims to be writing at the limits of language. Would it not be insulting to her if I were diligently to follow after her, explaining what she means but is not smart enough to say?

After Claims Diligently Elizabeth
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The end of confession is to tell the truth to and for oneself.
Confession End Oneself Tell
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Everyone seems to see bleakness and despair in my books. I don't read them that way. I see myself as writing comic books, books about ordinary people trying to live ordinary, dull, happy lives while the world is falling to pieces around them.

About Around Book Comic
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I read a great deal as a child. A lot of children go through a phase of reading in a literally voracious way. It is their primary imaginative activity. Maybe that's an experience which is not so common any more with the presence of television in every home.

Activity Any Child Children
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
Autobiography Storytelling Writing
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Lebanon, Israel, Ireland, South Africa - wherever there is a bleeding sore on the body of the world, the same hard-eyed narrow-minded fanatics are busy, indifferent to life, in love with death.

Africa Bleeding Body Busy
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South African literature is a literature in bondage. It is a less-than-fully-human literature. It is exactly the kind of literature you would expect people to write from prison.

African Bondage Exactly Expect
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I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.

Believe Charity Solidarity Vertical
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The Church says: the body is a sin. Science says: the body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The Body says: I am a fiesta.

Science Church Machine Advertising
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We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.
Mortal First kiss Second Glass
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I have never killed anybody, it is true, but it is because I lacked the courage or the time, not because I lacked the desire

Never Killed True Courage
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I am not particularly interested in saving time; I prefer to enjoy it.

Particularly Interested Saving Time
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If the past has nothing to say to the present, history may go on sleeping undisturbed in the closet where the system keeps its old disguises.

Past Present History Sleeping
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For sailors who love the wind, memory is a good port of departure.
Sailor Love Wind Memory
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Because every single one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others

Single One Deserves Celebrated
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In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion.

World Powerful Subjugated Wraith
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