John > John's Quotes

“I first became fascinated with the Sears catalogue because all the people in its pages were perfect. Nearly everybody I knew had something missing, a finger cut off, a toe split, an ear half-chewed away, an eye clouded with blindness from a glancing fence staple. And if they didn't have something missing, they were carrying scars from barbed wire, or knives, or fishhooks. But the people in the catalogue had no such hurts. They were not only whole, had all their arms and legs and eyes on their unscarred bodies, but they were also beautiful.”
― Harry Crews, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.
Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

“There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters. Even trashy bestsellers show people changing. When a fictional work fails to show change, when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory.

- from the introduction of the 1986 Norton edition”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“The ultimate sexist put-down: the prick which lies down on the job. The ultimate weapon in the war between the sexes: the limp prick. The banner of the enemy's encampment: the prick at half-mast. The symbol of the apocalypse: the atomic warhead prick which self-destructs. That was the basic inequity which could never be righted: not that the male had a wonderful added attraction called a penis, but that the female had a wonderful all-weather cunt. Neither storm nor sleet nor dark of night could faze it. It was always there, always ready. Quite terrifying, when you think about it. No wonder men hated women. No wonder they invented the myth of female inadequacy.”
― Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

“I never said I liked coffee better than sex. I said I'd had it more.”
― Kevin Sinnott

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
― Elmore Leonard

“There are three classes of people: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” – Leonardo da Vinci”
― Chris Messner, Inside Cuba Artistic Confessions

“The thing to remember when traveling is that the trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you will miss all that you are traveling for.” -Louis L’ Amour”
― Robert Rodriguez Jr, Insights From Beyond the Lens: Inside the Art & Craft of Landscape Photography

“The more I see, the less I know for sure.”
― John Lennon

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
― Robert Frank

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”
― Ambrose Bierce

“I don't drink water. Fish fuck in it.”
― W.C. Fields

“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.”
― Woodrow Wilson

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“I think that anti-Jewish prejudice is an unfailing sign of a sick and disordered person ... It's a horrible, conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual, mean spirited, eventually lethal piece of bigotry.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment.”
― Erol Ozan

“There is a delight in the hardy life of the open.

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm.

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value.

Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”
― Nora Ephron

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
― Joe Klaas, The Twelve Steps to Happiness: A Practical Handbook for Understanding and Working the Twelve Step Programs for Alcoholism, Codependency, Eating Disorders, and Other Addictions

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”
― Ambrose Bierce

“Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.”
― Dorothy Parker

“The icon receded, and the word “PASSWORD” came up front, bold and center, with a blinking space to fill. Jayce reached again for his ear, but caught himself. He moved his fingers, entering “p.a.s.s.w.o.r.d.” into the space. “ACCESS DENIED,” it read. Hmmm.”
― Josh Barkey, Jayce

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum