Mary Robinette Kowal > Mary Robinette's Quotes

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others”
― Martha Graham

“The process by which the inanimate becomes animate seems to the audience to be a real miracle.”
― Sergei Obraztsov

“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”
― H.G. Wells

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
― Jim Henson

“[Kids] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”
― Jim Henson, It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

“The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children. ”
― Jim Henson

“If you care about what you do and work hard at it, there isn't anything you can't do if you want to.”
― Jim Henson, It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

“When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there. ”
― Jim Henson

“As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood.”
― Jim Henson

“It all ends in one of two ways: either someone gets eaten or something blows up.”
― Jim Henson

“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!”
― Jane Austen, Love and Freindship

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.”
― Jane Austen

“The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.”
― Jane Austen, Love and Friendship

“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”
― Jane Austen

“I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.”
― Jane Austen

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am.”
― Jane Austen

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”
― Jane Austen

“Indulge your imagination in every possible flight.”
― Jane Austen

“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”
― Jane Austen

“Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in.... The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.”
― Jane Austen

“[N]obody minds having what is too good for them.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.”
― Jane Austen

“I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”
― Jane Austen, Jane Austen's Letters