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.

Lisa Jakub

What was really wonderful about the 'Doubtfire' shoot is that we had this really long rehearsal period in the beginning. That was a great time to get to know each other. We got to know each other and to create the family vibe. So we really didn't have to force it.

Michael Steele

The federal government has never created one job that is sustainable long term. It creates government project work but not creating real work where people are.

Ghazi Hamad

The position of the (Interior Ministry) general inspector was not created by the government, it had been there before the new government was formed.

John Brown

the people who create it want the most to protect it.

Aaron Guillen

We've actually tucked the elementary school back with the industrial to create a little more buffer.

Jerome Antone

We started out on a full-court press, but we had to switch to a man all over the floor when the press was not working. We created a lot of turnovers and our defense made opportunities for our offense. That is the greatest defense we have played all year.

Eric Keller

We spread the offense to spread the opposing defenses and that really creates running room.

Omar Vizquel

Wherever he goes, he's probably going to create a lot of controversy. That's why he's one of the greatest.

Art Shell

When you walk out there, when you into that stadium, you walk out there with a presence. Mr. Davis called it a swagger. I just want to get back to the point where when we walk into a stadium, they know the Raiders are in town. And when we walk into the Coliseum, the Raiders are here. ... We've got to create that attitude, and that's what I expect to do.

Charles Stross

I don't do flash fiction.

China Mieville

I'd never been to a science-fiction convention until I became a professional writer.

China Mieville

I'm a science fiction and fantasy geek.

China Mieville

One of the things that I love so much about fantasy and science fiction is that the weirdness that it creates is always at its best completely its own end and also metaphorically and symbolically laden.

David Morrell

There are no inferior types of fiction, only inferior practitioners of them.

David Mitchell

Implausible truth can serve one better than plausible fiction

Chad Harbach

Fiction and nonfiction, for me, involve very different processes.

Kurt Vonnegut

What do my science fiction stories have in common with pornography? Fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world, I'm told.

Edith Wharton

Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments and regarded as the spray into which the great wave of narrative breaks in curving towards the watcher on the shore.

Dave Barry

The fact that Gene Weingarten and I and Bathroom Inventory are now part of some kind of Matrix of Poop strongly suggests that the Pulitzer is not what it once was.

Gretchen Rubin

I love finding - or inventing - ways to categorize people.

Edgar Degas

One reproduces only that which is striking; that is to say, the necessary. Thus, one's recollections and inventions are liberated from the tyranny which nature exerts.

Bob Moulton

We're making a transition from a seller's market to a buyer's market. Inventory is starting to swell.

Phil Garner

We're going to have to take a personal inventory as a team,

Jules Verne

In consequence of inventing machines, men will be devoured by them.

Rhys Ifans

My personal life is invented for me, so why bother?

Robert Carlyle

The quality of TV drama nowadays is getting better and better. They've had to invent a new term for it: 'high-end television.'

Robert Mankoff

'The New Yorker' didn't invent the magazine cartoon, but it did really establish it.

Damon Lindelof

There is no suspense in inevitability.

Alfred Hitchcock

For me, suspense doesn't have any value if it's not balanced by humor.

Antoine Fuqua

You could call it that [urban Western], I guess, you could certainly call it that. A lot of these types of films are, really, if you get down to the core most suspense thrillers in this genre, the Western is sort of the birth of it all.

John Calvin

Whenever the Lord holds us in suspense, and delays his aid, he is not therefore asleep, but, on the contrary, regulates all His works in such a manner that he does nothing but at the proper time.

Jeffery Deaver

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

Lisa Gardner

Before I became a suspense novelist, I wrote romantic suspense as Alicia Scott.

Philip Pullman

Just finished 'Secrecy' - truly enthralling both as a love story and as a tale of suspense - but much more than both.

Iris Johansen

I am more of a suspense writer. A mystery writer solves mysteries. I am a high suspense writer.

Scott Eastwood

Really I'm a fan of any movie, whether it's suspense, action, or comedy, anything that has a good story.

Homaro Cantu

Urban farming is not only possible, it is crucial. But it can't be like the farming techniques of yore.

Arthur Bryant

Say what you have to say in the fewest possible words.

Robert Klein

In some articles written about me, writers have said I'm a link between the old and the new, and I think, in a certain sense, that's legitimate.

Brian K. Vaughan

There are probably writers who are much more visual than I am and some who are less. I like to think of myself as a happy medium.

Charlaine Harris

Well, you know, writers just suck up new experiences - we're just like the vacuum cleaners of newness.

Sara Sheridan

Scottish writers are particularly successful in the crime genre.

Aminatta Forna

Most writers I know go for word counts, and I used to be a journalist, so I guess that's ingrained.

Claire Tomalin

Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films.

John Dos Passos

If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.

Jean Paul

Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.