Dan Smith > Dan's Quotes

“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”
― Pablo Picasso

“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
― Jack London

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”
― Frank Tibolt

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
― Joan Powers, Pooh's Little Instruction Book

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
― Mark Twain

“When you die it's the same as if everybody else did too.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“I will do what I promised." He whispered. "No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“You have to carry the fire."
I don't know how to."
Yes, you do."
Is the fire real? The fire?"
Yes it is."
Where is it? I don't know where it is."
Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“The nights were blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered, Oh God.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Teaching writing is a hustle.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“If only my heart were stone.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.”
― Stephen King

“The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows.”
― Stephen King

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”
― Oscar Wilde

“It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.”
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”
― Oscar Wilde

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary