Conor Clancy > Conor's Quotes

“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we were put in this world to rise above.”
― James Agee and John Huston for Katherine Hepburn in "The African Queen"

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.”
― Neil Gaiman

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“The first draft of anything is shit.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Sometimes I think that Jesus watches my neurotic struggles, and shakes his head and grips his forehead and starts tossing back mojitos.”
― Anne Lamott

“All good writers write [terrible first drafts.] This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. . . I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”
― Stephen Fry

“When I finally find that one willing agent, I'll have found my prize in the Cracker Jack box.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Look, this is all very, very weird. Why are you focusing on rumours and urban legends? You haven’t even asked me any
normal questions.”
“Normal questions? Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know, like if Lynch had any enemies.”
“Did Lynch have any enemies?”
“Well, not that I know of, no.”
“Then there really was no point in me asking that, was there? Unless you wanted to distract me. You didn’t want to distract me, did you, Kenny?”
“No, that’s not—”
“Are you playing a game with me, Kenny?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
Inspector Me leaned forward. “Did you kill him?”
“No!”
“It’d be OK if you did.”
Kenny recoiled, horrified. “How would that be OK?”
“Well,” Me said, “maybe not”
― Derek Landy, Death Bringer

“The rain battered the cottage. Valkyrie risked a look up at Skulduggery.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“It’s a box,” he whispered back.
“What kind of box?”
“A wooden one.”
She gave him a look.”
― Derek Landy, Death Bringer

“There’s no need to finish reading books that you only got halfway through. Their purpose was to be read halfway.”
― Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

“I have yet to see a house that lacked sufficient storage. The real problem is that we have far more than we need or want.”
― Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

“‎You're not the same as you were before," he said. You were much more... muchier... you've lost your muchness.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass