Amber > Amber's Quotes

Showing 1-27 of 27
sort by

    like
  • #1
    Philip Sington
    “I wanted her body and soul, but body first.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    tags: body, love, sex, soul
    10 likes

    • like
  • #2
    Philip Sington
    “One thing I knew about the novelist’s task: when in doubt, write; when empty, write; when afraid, write. Nothing is more impenetrable than the blank page. The blank page is the void, the absence of sense and feeling, the white light of literary death.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    tags: writing-writer-s-block
    13 likes

    • like
  • #3
    Philip Sington
    “One of the joys of being in love is that it clarifies your priorities. Complication arises from not knowing what you want.”
    ― Philip Sington
    tags: love-priorities-clarity
    8 likes

    • like
  • #4
    Philip Sington
    “To rehearse imaginary conversations on paper is called literature. To do so out loud is called madness.”
    ― Philip Sington
    tags: literature-madness
    9 likes

    • like
  • #5
    Philip Sington
    “I was already at an age when putting off anything was a bad idea.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    10 likes

    • like
  • #6
    Philip Sington
    “Desire is an appetite, quickly sated. Longing is a wound, an opening in the heart or the spirit. Whatever the cause, whatever the duration, it almost always leaves a scar.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    tags: desire, longing, love
    14 likes

    • like
  • #7
    Philip Sington
    “The railway was part scalpel, part movie camera, slicing the city open, parading its inner workings at fifty frames per second. It was on the S-Bahn that she felt least abandoned, as if the act of travelling turned back the clock, and brought her nearer to the future she had lost.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Einstein Girl
    tags: berlin, relativity, s-bahn, time
    10 likes

    • like
  • #8
    Philip Sington
    “And then they would watch her closely as the dark, coagulated masses took form before her eyes, became flesh and bone, became gradually human. For all their show of reluctance, she had a sense that they enjoyed introducing her to these horrors, as seducers took pleasure in the corruption of innocence.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Einstein Girl
    tags: 1930s, berlin, crime-scenes, police
    10 likes

    • like
  • #9
    Margaret Atwood
    “If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”
    ― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
    599 likes

    • like
  • #10
    Margaret Atwood
    “For if the world treats you well, Sir, you come to believe you are deserving of it.”
    ― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
    185 likes

    • like
  • #11
    Philip Sington
    “All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that Hemingway's mother dressed him as a girl until he was six years old?"
    I was not offended by Claudia's glib psychological theory. Like many glib psychological theories, it struck me as fundamentally correct.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    tags: insecurity, psychology, sington, writers
    12 likes

    • like
  • #12
    Philip Sington
    “For the writer under Actually Existing Socialism describing sex is a simple matter: he simply does not do it (the describing, I mean, not the sex).”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    tags: sex, socialism, writing
    7 likes

    • like
  • #13
    Philip Sington
    “We drank our coffee the Russian way. That is to say we had vodka before it and vodka afterwards.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    tags: coffee, russia, vodka
    27 likes

    • like
  • #14
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
    “To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
    ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
    tags: independent-thought, self-determination, self-expression
    6708 likes

    • like
  • #15
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
    “The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.”
    ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
    tags: life, perspective, social-norms, society
    529 likes

    • like
  • #16
    Gustave Flaubert
    “Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”
    ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
    407 likes

    • like
  • #17
    Gustave Flaubert
    “Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

    (Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.)”
    ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
    tags: disappointment, disillusionment, gilding, idols, touch
    565 likes

    • like
  • #18
    Gustave Flaubert
    “Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling.”
    ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
    tags: french, greed, love, money
    110 likes

    • like
  • #19
    Philip Sington
    “Old Prague was a story-book city caked in grime: ancient, soot-blackened. History lived in every detail: in the deerstalker rooftops and the blue-sparking trams. He wandered the streets in disbelief, photographing everything, images from Kafka crowding into his head. With the turn of every corner it came back to him: the special frisson you get behind enemy lines.”
    ― Philip Sington, Zoia's Gold
    tags: prague
    11 likes

    • like
  • #20
    Philip Sington
    “He reached into the grate, picked out a couple of scraps, smoothed them out, leaning close to the flickering light. He was curious to see what it was Zoia had decided to destroy.”
    ― Philip Sington, Zoia's Gold
    tags: zoia-secrets-curiosity
    4 likes

    • like
  • #21
    Philip Sington
    “That was the dream of Montparnasse: to live for the moments of the greatest intensity, to find in them a truthful inspiration, and to hell with all the rest.”
    ― Philip Sington, Zoia's Gold
    tags: montparnasse-paris-art-truth
    4 likes

    • like
  • #22
    Philip Sington
    “Who is the other woman whose photograph I do not have? If my mother was the first in my life, she was the last: my lover and my downfall, my hope and my despair. Her photographs I burned in an ashtray, one at a time - some might say to be rid of the evidence. Her name was Theresa Aden: Theresa like the saint; Aden like Eden, complete with snake.”
    ― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing
    tags: eden, lovers, photographs, women
    5 likes

    • like
  • #23
    Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    “Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
    ― Kurt Vonnegut
    tags: humour, telekinetics
    10120 likes

    • like
  • #24
    Philip Sington
    “Problems are there to be solved. How dull life would be without them.”
    ― Philip Sington
    tags: life, problems, the-einstein-girl-einstein
    2 likes

    • like
  • #25
    Philip Sington
    “I have found that in fiction one is freer to speak the truth, if only because in fiction the truth is not expected or required. You may easily disguise it, so that it is only recognized much later, when the story and the characters have faded into darkness.”
    ― Philip Sington
    tags: disguise, fiction, truth, writing
    3 likes

    • like
  • #26
    Robert A. Heinlein
    “Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
    ― Robert A. Heinlein
    tags: cats, humor, women
    28799 likes

    • like
  • #27
    “Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.”
    ― Paul Terry
    tags: exercise, humor, laziness, misattributed-to-hutchins
    24393 likes



Rss
All Quotes



Tags From Amber’s Quotes

body
love
sex
soul
writing-writer-s-block
love-priorities-clarity
literature-madness
desire
longing
berlin
relativity
s-bahn
time
1930s
crime-scenes
police
insecurity
psychology
sington
writers
socialism
writing
coffee
russia
vodka
independent-thought
self-determination
self-expression
life
perspective
social-norms
society
disappointment
disillusionment
gilding
idols
touch
french
greed
money
prague
zoia-secrets-curiosity
montparnasse-paris-art-truth
eden
lovers
photographs
women
humour
telekinetics
problems
the-einstein-girl-einstein
disguise
fiction
truth
cats
humor
exercise
laziness
misattributed-to-hutchins