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4391 Novelist Quotes

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.

Depend Dreary Make Morals
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Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

Courage Fears Keep Others
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To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.

Alive Amen Humbly Instead
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To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.
Identity Idle Personal Requires
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The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Full Happy Kings Number
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That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.

Laughed Lived Loved Man
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When I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great. And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys.

Am Boy Estate Girl
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To forget oneself is to be happy.
Be Happy Forget Happy Oneself
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I think in many ways the problem that my writing would have with an American reviewer is that Americans find difficulty very hard to take. They are inevitably looking for a happy ending.

American American Difficulty Ending
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Time is the element that controls the consciousness, the very being of the people.
Being Consciousness Controls Element
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I used to want to be a backup singer. Not a lead singer, because I really can't sing.
Backup Because Lead Lead Singer
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Everyone who knew me as a child, they say they're not surprised that I became a writer because I wrote all the time. I don't remember writing, because I wouldn't have had the tools, but I think what they are saying is that I would pretend I was a writer.

Became Because Child Everyone
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I didn't really understand racism because I grew up in an all-black society, so I didn't see how it was possible not to like me!

Because Grew How Like
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It is true that I am a writer, and I was married to a composer, and I have lived in a small village in New England, but my children are not named Heracles and Persephone, and my daughter doesn't disappear underground every six months and emerge in the spring.

Am Children Composer Daughter
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For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided.

Accept Always Avoided Being
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What distinguished my life from my brother's is that my mother didn't like me. When I became a woman, I seemed to repel her.

Became Brother Distinguished Her
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I think life is difficult and that's that. I am not at all - absolutely not at all - interested in the pursuit of happiness. I am not interested in the pursuit of positivity. I am interested in pursuing a truth, and the truth often seems to be not happiness but its opposite.

Absolutely Absolutely Not Am Difficult
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I have a sense of destiny because of my mother, who was an extraordinary person but a terrible candidate for mother. She was like the god Cronus, who gave birth to his children in the morning and then ate them at night.

Ate Because Birth Candidate
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When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground.

About Garden Ground I Think
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I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.
Afraid Fail Know Possible
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Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.

Conservatism Know Secondhand Very
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The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater.
Art Discussion Drama Intellectual
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Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.

Doubt Fanaticism
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Only a fool expects to be happy all the time.
Be Expects Fool Happy
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Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.

Actually Almost Anybody Best
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We wanted to meet him, for though we were neither of us naive people we had not wholly lost our belief that it is delightful to meet artists who have given us pleasure.

Artists Belief Delightful Given
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I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them.

Any Anyone Books Ever
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Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.

Art Ashamed Author Belief
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I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me.
Get Ideas Me
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The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.

However Inevitably Inexperienced Influences
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The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

Age Book Depends Experience
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May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.
Down Feel Help Hoping
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The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.

Fact Full Future Notion
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If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual.
Common Love Occasional Passion
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Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.

Few Genius Offended People
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Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

Easy Fake Inner Nothing
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The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

Comprehend Eye Mind Only
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Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.

Authors Because Cats Creatures
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The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.

Believe Gift Gives Greatest
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A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.

Mere Opera World
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You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.
Forever Gallery Never Playing
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A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

Again Age Book Building
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Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

Because Become Circumstances Extraordinary
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Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year.

Been Did Die Lucky
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What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us.

Call Happen Inner Luck
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The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.

Humor Lies Love Much
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A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.

Childhood Happy Life Many
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Canada is not really a place where you are encouraged to have large spiritual adventures.

Adventures Canada Encouraged Large
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The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

Also Difficult Himself His
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To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
Characteristics Combine Dope Fiend
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