Carol Kean > Carol's Quotes

“And that's why books are never going to die. It's impossible. It's the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this. So the book doesn't only belong to the writer, it belongs to the reader as well, and then together you make it what it is.”
― Paul Auster

“For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.”
― Ralph Emerson

“Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.”
― Paul Theroux

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."

[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.”
― Margaret Atwood

“Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius.”
― Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

“Over the sea there dwelt a queen whose like was never known, for she was of vast strength and surpassing beauty. With her love as the prize, she vied with brave warriors at throwing the javelin, and the noble lady also hurled the weight to a great distance and followed with a long leap; and whoever aspired to her love had, without fail, to win these three tests against her, or else, if he lost but one, he forfeited his head.”
― The Nibelungenlied

“Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“What was that?" Belgarath asked, coming back around the corner.
"Brill," Silk replied blandly, pulling his Murgo robe back on.
"Again?" Belgarath demanded with exasperation. "What was he doing this time?"
"Trying to fly, last time I saw him." Silk smirked.
The old man looked puzzled.
"He wasn't doing it very well," Silk added.
Belgarath shrugged. "Maybe it'll come to him in time."
"He doesn't really have all that much time." Silk glanced out over the edge.
"From far below - terribly far below - there came a faint, muffled crash; then, after several seconds, another. "Does bouncing count?" Silk asked.
Belgarath made a wry face. "Not really."
"Then I'd say he didn't learn in time." Silk said blithely.”
― David Eddings, Magician's Gambit

“If you're just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television's electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Reality is incredibly larger, infinitely more exciting, than the flesh and blood vehicle we travel in here. If you read science fiction, the more you read it the more you realize that you and the universe are part of the same thing. Science knows still practically nothing about the real nature of matter, energy, dimension, or time; and even less about those remarkable things called life and thought. But whatever the meaning and purpose of this universe, you are a legitimate part of it. And since you are part of the all that is, part of its purpose, there is more to you than just this brief speck of existence. You
are just a visitor here in this time and this place, a traveler through it.”
― Gene Roddenberry

“Ancient astronauts didn't build the pyramids. Human beings built the pyramids, because they're clever and they work hard.”
― Gene Roddenberry

“No one can be trusted who isn't thrilled with himself at least now and then.”
― Peter Handke

“If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.”
― Peter Handke

“My life is too tight, he wanted to say. My skin is too tight. The walls are too tight.”
― Hugh Howey, Wool

“There were certain things, learned so young and remembered so deep that they felt like little stones in the center of her mind.”
― Hugh Howey, The Unraveling

“A seed of hope caught a taste of moisture. Some wishful kernel buried deep, where he was loathe to acknowledge it lest it poison or choke him, began to sprout.”
― Hugh Howey, The Unraveling

“I'm coming for you. I'm coming home, I'm coming to clean”
― Hugh Howey, The Unraveling

“some things are better off back in the past. Where they belong.”
― Hugh Howey, First Shift: Legacy

“He had wandered with innocence and naivete into this web, and now every move would wrap him tighter. Each lie would stick to the others, until one day he would find himself in a tight little cocoon, trapped and suffocating from the thousands of little fibs that living and working in that cursed swamp of a city seemed to require every man to ooze.”
― Hugh Howey

“Better to go out to see the world one time with his own eyes, than to be burned alive with the plastic curtains.”
― Hugh Howey, Wool

“This was the mark of deep infatuation, he thought: the desire to watch a woman talk just to see her lips move, to be around her.”
― Hugh Howey, Second Shift: Order

“Denial is the secret sauce in this town,” he said. “It’s the flavor that holds all the other ingredients together. Here’s what I tell the newly elected: the truth is gonna get out—it always does—but it’s gonna blend in with all the lies.” The Senator twirled a hand in the air. “You have to deny each lie and every truth with the same vinegar. Let those websites and blowhards who bitch about cover-ups confuse the public for you.”
― Hugh Howey, First Shift: Legacy

“He awoke each morning with familiar shapes at the edges of his vision, could feel memories nearby, but by the time breakfast came, they were already fading. By dinner, they were lost. It left Troy with a sadness, a cold sensation, and a feeling like a hollow stomach--different from hunger--like rainy days as a child when he didn't know how to fill his time. It was the pain of a chronic boredom mixed with the discomfort of time wasted.”
― Hugh Howey, First Shift: Legacy

“There were certain things, learned so young and remembered so deep that they felt like little stones in the center of her mind. These would be the parts of her that rotted last, the bits left over once the rest skittered off on the wind or was drunk deep by the roots.”
― Hugh Howey, The Unraveling

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“Yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.”
― Daisaku Ikeda, The Human Revolution

“I have the defect of being more
sincere than persons wish.”
― Moliere, The Misanthrope

“There are some things so serious that you have to laugh at them.”
― Niels Bohr