Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Dickens

If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face.

Charles Dickens

"My comfort is," said Susan, looking back at Mr. Dombey, "that I have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and can't be told too often or too plain..."

Charles Dickens

"You are a boy," said Mr. Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; "and what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You have done well, Sir. Don't undo it."

Charles Caleb Colton

Living authors, therefore, are usually, bad companions. If they have not gained character, they seek to do so by methods often ridiculous, always disgusting; and if they have established a character, they are silent for fear of losing by their tongue what they have acquired by their pen--for many authors converse much more foolishly than Goldsmith, who have never written half so well.

Charles Caleb Colton

When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

Charles Caleb Colton

We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.

Charles Caleb Colton

Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.

Charles Caleb Colton

Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.

Charles Caleb Colton

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.

Tom Bissell

My fiction-writing DNA shows in how I think about prose, how I think about the page, how I think nonfiction stories should work. And every piece of nonfiction I write, I want it to have fictional texture.

Christian McKay

It's more difficult playing a real-life person than a fictional character - you can go easy on yourself with a fictional character.

Cary Fukunaga

I began writing fictional stories and little screenplays when I was in fifth grade.

Allan Gurganus

When I grew up, there were locked cabinets in public libraries. You needed parental permission if you were under eighteen. I was let down by the overblown reputations of some hardcore fictional works.

Mark Billingham

More than 100 years after he first appeared, Holmes remains the template for the fictional detective.

Annie Baker

I'm really trying to stop setting my plays in this one fictional town in Vermont.

David Guterson

I was totally absorbed in the real world, the politics, the history, the news, and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel, it was in fits and starts.

Bob Woods

The story could be set in some fictional place, but it wasn't. They made it personal. They plopped it down in a specific place. People in a small town take a lot of pride in who they are, and that's not who they are. This isn't New York. And then set it in 1963, right? In 1963, they'd make fun of a man if he wore shorts.

Julia Glass

I'm a fictional monogamist - I can only work on one thing at a time - but each novel starts growing in my head when I'm about midway through the previous novel.