this post brought to you by actual facts literature...
Since I've been going through my writing/idea notebooks lately, I've started reading random quotes that I liked and jotted down again. And realized I still love some of them. Thus, I am sharing the love, and posting some here (also, because I'm putting off getting back to revising my character sketches :oP)
Enjoy!
To start it off, a bit on insight into writing and words:
"The word that they use for writing, pharmakon (drug), means 'remedy' as well as 'poison.'"
- Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism (I fail here... I didn't write down what essay it was, or who the author was :o/)
Here's some poetry quotes. I'm not a huge fan of poetry, but when I find a poet I like, I fall hard for him/her. Louise MacNeice is awesome, the first poet I ever really, really liked. I love all his stuff. Lucille Clifton is also another poet I really like. Some of her stuff uses religious imagery, and I love it. I had more of her stuff written down, and would share, but I can't find my notebook with those poems in there :o/
"the angels have no wings
they come to you wearing
their own clothes
they have learned to love you
and will keep coming
unless you insist on wings"
- Mercy, by Lucille Clifton
"And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
- "The Waste Land," by T.S. Eliot
"The awful daring of a moment's surrender."
- "The Waste Land," by T.S. Eliot
"hell must break before I am lost;
before I am lost,
hell must open like a red rose
for the dead to pass."
- "Eurydice," by Hilda Doolittle
"To a place where God and no-God
Play at pitch and toss."
- London Rain, by Louis MacNeice (AWESOME poet, and I'm not a poetry person.)
Obviously, we needs some literature :oP It's a mixture of novel and short story quotes. Again, I have more stuff lying around but, well, I'm getting lazy now...
"...and I am pen and I am ink and I am his words."
- Intercourse, by Robert Olen Butler
"'Well, to me, the point is that even when you know plenty of scripture, you still have to decide how to make use of it.'
'Yeah, but since our nature is corrupt, left to ourselves we make corrupt choices. Isn't that right?'
'That's what it means to be saved, Alan. It means you walk in the light, not in the dark, and because you walk in the light you can see better than some other folks...'"
- The End of California, by Steve Yarborough (awesome writer and, I'll brag a bit, my prof :oP)
"But we don't always have to be studying something, I thought. It's perfectly enough merely to think, to do nothing but think and give our thoughts free reign."
- The Loser, by Thomas Bernhard
"... it was time; dying is the last favor we do the world, the last tax we pay."
- "A Sandstone Farmhouse" in The Afterlife and Other Stories, by John Updike
"His mother had made a shrewd investment, buying back paradise."
- "A Sandstone Farmhouse" in The Afterlife and Other Stories, by John Updike
"Say the story ends neither happily nor sadly because it is not always the privilege of stories to know when they are about to end, are ending, or have ended."
- "Terminal", J. Erin Sweeney (in McSweeney's literary journal).
"The trees are dead, and only the deepest religion can break through time and believe they'll revive."
- Grendel, by John Gardner
"But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.
Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought."
- The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
"...I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind."
- Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
"If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us."
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
And some random stuff... including movie quotes, a quote from a science textbook, a comedy skit, and Hugh Jackman ;o)
"I am all that remains after all else has turned to dust. I am very, very tired."
-The Order
"I'd rather be a ghost floating by your side for seven days and be together, than enter heaven without you. My love for you will always keep me from being a lonely spirit."
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
"'He took away my pain, and I fell in love with a priest who couldn't love me back.'
'Love... You traded one pain for another.'"
- The Order
"Venus, the bright morning (and evening) star, known also as Lucifer (Latin for Light Bringer)..."
- Inferno and Purgatorio, by Jack Holt (a science textbook lol. but yeah, idk, I thought it was interesting so wrote it down :oP)
"Unless it touches your heart, it's not a good story."
- Hugh Jackman
"If heat rises Heaven must be hotter than Hell."
- Steven Wright (yeah, i think this is from a comedy sketch, but I loves it)
Okay! That's it for now... that was longer than I expected... but oh well. I feel like not even the best quotes got in here, but I have to dig up the rest of my writing notes :oP
Anyway, I've procrastinated enough... time to get back to work...
Enjoy!
To start it off, a bit on insight into writing and words:
"The word that they use for writing, pharmakon (drug), means 'remedy' as well as 'poison.'"
- Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism (I fail here... I didn't write down what essay it was, or who the author was :o/)
Here's some poetry quotes. I'm not a huge fan of poetry, but when I find a poet I like, I fall hard for him/her. Louise MacNeice is awesome, the first poet I ever really, really liked. I love all his stuff. Lucille Clifton is also another poet I really like. Some of her stuff uses religious imagery, and I love it. I had more of her stuff written down, and would share, but I can't find my notebook with those poems in there :o/
"the angels have no wings
they come to you wearing
their own clothes
they have learned to love you
and will keep coming
unless you insist on wings"
- Mercy, by Lucille Clifton
"And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
- "The Waste Land," by T.S. Eliot
"The awful daring of a moment's surrender."
- "The Waste Land," by T.S. Eliot
"hell must break before I am lost;
before I am lost,
hell must open like a red rose
for the dead to pass."
- "Eurydice," by Hilda Doolittle
"To a place where God and no-God
Play at pitch and toss."
- London Rain, by Louis MacNeice (AWESOME poet, and I'm not a poetry person.)
Obviously, we needs some literature :oP It's a mixture of novel and short story quotes. Again, I have more stuff lying around but, well, I'm getting lazy now...
"...and I am pen and I am ink and I am his words."
- Intercourse, by Robert Olen Butler
"'Well, to me, the point is that even when you know plenty of scripture, you still have to decide how to make use of it.'
'Yeah, but since our nature is corrupt, left to ourselves we make corrupt choices. Isn't that right?'
'That's what it means to be saved, Alan. It means you walk in the light, not in the dark, and because you walk in the light you can see better than some other folks...'"
- The End of California, by Steve Yarborough (awesome writer and, I'll brag a bit, my prof :oP)
"But we don't always have to be studying something, I thought. It's perfectly enough merely to think, to do nothing but think and give our thoughts free reign."
- The Loser, by Thomas Bernhard
"... it was time; dying is the last favor we do the world, the last tax we pay."
- "A Sandstone Farmhouse" in The Afterlife and Other Stories, by John Updike
"His mother had made a shrewd investment, buying back paradise."
- "A Sandstone Farmhouse" in The Afterlife and Other Stories, by John Updike
"Say the story ends neither happily nor sadly because it is not always the privilege of stories to know when they are about to end, are ending, or have ended."
- "Terminal", J. Erin Sweeney (in McSweeney's literary journal).
"The trees are dead, and only the deepest religion can break through time and believe they'll revive."
- Grendel, by John Gardner
"But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.
Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought."
- The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
"...I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind."
- Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
"If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us."
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
And some random stuff... including movie quotes, a quote from a science textbook, a comedy skit, and Hugh Jackman ;o)
"I am all that remains after all else has turned to dust. I am very, very tired."
-The Order
"I'd rather be a ghost floating by your side for seven days and be together, than enter heaven without you. My love for you will always keep me from being a lonely spirit."
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
"'He took away my pain, and I fell in love with a priest who couldn't love me back.'
'Love... You traded one pain for another.'"
- The Order
"Venus, the bright morning (and evening) star, known also as Lucifer (Latin for Light Bringer)..."
- Inferno and Purgatorio, by Jack Holt (a science textbook lol. but yeah, idk, I thought it was interesting so wrote it down :oP)
"Unless it touches your heart, it's not a good story."
- Hugh Jackman
"If heat rises Heaven must be hotter than Hell."
- Steven Wright (yeah, i think this is from a comedy sketch, but I loves it)
Okay! That's it for now... that was longer than I expected... but oh well. I feel like not even the best quotes got in here, but I have to dig up the rest of my writing notes :oP
Anyway, I've procrastinated enough... time to get back to work...