Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
Category: Quotable
Quotable 34
The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.
– Mark Twain
Quotable 33
Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
– Sylvia Plath
Quotable 32
Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task — such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping — I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.
– Isaac Asimov
Quotable 31
Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
– Kurt Vonnegut
Quotable 30
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.
– Samuel Johnson
Quotable 29
Ours is a useful trade, a worthy calling; that with all its lightness and frivolity it has one serious purpose, one aim, one specialty, and it is constant to it — the deriding of shams, the exposure of pretentious falsities, the laughing of stupid superstitions out of existence; and that whoso is by instinct engaged in this sort of warfare is the natural enemy of royalties, nobilities, privileges and all kindred swindles, and the natural friend of human rights and human liberties.
– Samuel L. Clemens
Quotable 28
We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. … Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.
– John Updike
Quotable 27
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.
– Ernest Hemingway
Quotable 26
Satisfy yourself first. That way you know at least one person had a good time. (This is only true for storytelling; it is exactly the opposite for sex.)
– David Gerrold