Don > Don's Quotes

“His own faith, however, was not lacking in virtues since it consisted in acknowledging obscurely that he would be granted much without ever deserving anything.”
― Albert Camus

“In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.”
― John Barth

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

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“People assume that artists must talk about art and beauty and the sublime whenever we get together, but no, we usually talk about money.”
― Christopher Bram, The Notorious Dr. August: A Riveting Historical Novel of Ghosts, Love, and a Clairvoyant Pianist

“I agree that it's a shame some books have to suffer ratings that clearly are invalid. However I can't think of a way to prevent it, and I didn't see any ideas in the thread either (I did skim though).

I hope you'll appreciate that if we just start deleting ratings whenever we feel like it, that we've gone down a censorship road that doesn't take us to a good place.”
― Otis Y. Chandler

“I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
― Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
― Nick Cave

“When I am dead, even then,
I will still love you, I will wait in these poems,
When I am dead, even then
I am still listening to you.”
― Muriel Rukeyser

“I am alone here in my own mind.
There is no map
and there is no road.
It is one of a kind
just as yours is.”
― Anne Sexton

“it is all fun and games until a sore loser loses or someone accuses someone of cheating.”
― R.K. Cowles

“Each night Father fills me with dread
When he sits on the foot of my bed;
I'd not mind that he speaks
In gibbers and squeaks,
But for seventeen years he's been dead.”
― Edward Gorey, Amphigorey

“Charles Simic, when asked what he thought of Slam Poetry events: "They are fun, but they have as much to do with poetry as Elvis Presley had to do with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk".”
― Charles Simic

“There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either.”
― Robert Graves

“If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”
― Woody Allen

“Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective.”
― Rob Bell

“Go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut,” murmured Paul Lazzaro in his azure nest. “Go take a flying fuck at the moon”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― E.E. Cummings

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all.”
― Andre Breton, Nadja

“What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within the span of his little life by him who interests his heart in everything.”
― Laurence Sterne

“The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.”
― Willa Cather

“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Shut your eyes and see.”
― James Joyce

“If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt?”
― David Sedaris, Holidays on Ice

“If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.”
― David Sedaris, Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays

“If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve.”
― David Sedaris

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
― James Baldwin