Famous Quotes & Sayings

George Will

Remarkably, [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein was reading her statement. So her mare's-nest of inapposite words and unclear thoughts cannot be excused as symptoms of Biden's Disease, that form of logorrhea that causes victims, such as Sen. Joe Biden, to become lost on the syntactical back roads of their extemporaneous rhetoric.

George Will

If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word National.

George Saunders

On a more technical level, a story takes a lot of words. And to generate words and phrases and images and so on, that will compel the reader to continue reading - that stand a chance of really grabbing a reader - the writer has to work out of a place of, let's say, familiarity and affection. The matrix of the story has to be made out of stuff the writer really knows about and likes. The writer can't be stretching and (purely) inventing all the time. Well, I can't, anyway.

Jeffery Deaver

I think a lot of young aspiring writers get misdirected; they think 'I ought to write this, even though I enjoy reading that'. What you have to do is write what you enjoy reading.

Jean Paul

Never write on a subject without first having read yourself full on it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on it.

Jerry Spinelli

No one on earth is so boring and insignificant that he or she is not worth writing or reading about...One thing's for sure—no one but you can be the hero of your story.

Jerry Spinelli

I love surprises! That's what is great about reading. When you open a book, you never know what you'll find.

Jerome K. Jerome

I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

Jeffrey Jones

This outfit called Los Angeles Theatre Works does readings of plays.

Jeffrey Eugenides

I think, especially when you're in college, each book that you're reading tends to tell you who you are.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights. What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly enjoying narrative! Madeleine felt safe with a nineteenth century novel. There were going to be people in it. Something was going to happen to them in a place resembling the world. Then too there were lots of weddings in Wharton and Austen. There were all kinds of irresistible gloomy men.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Being a writer is a solitary life. So the little part of me that's an actor still enjoys the theatrical part of reading and doing the voices and telling the story.

Jeff Jarvis

The first step in blogging is not writing them but reading them.

Jim Evans

Most plays that are missed by the umpire are caused by the umpire not reading those cues early enough and making the proper adjustments.

Jennifer Lawrence

You can't ever let yourself be thrown by a camera. That's never good for an actor. When you're reading the script, you want to work with someone you trust so there's nothing to worry about.

Jean M. Auel

You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don't even think about being a writer.

James Cameron

I probably spend more time writing than reading science fiction. I find that science-fiction literature is so reactive to all the literature that's gone before that it's sort of like a fractal. It's gone to a level of detail that the average person could not possibly follow unless you're a fan. It iterates upon many prior generations of iterations.

James Agate

All I want is a modest place in Mr X's Good Reading, Miss Y's Good Writing, and that new edition of One Thousand Best Bits of Recent Prose.

James A. Michener

If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.

Jackson Browne

I grew up reading Shakespeare and Mark Twain.

Jack Vance

I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.

Christopher Jones

The saying "the cherry on top" is only a good metaphor if the person listening or reading actually likes cherries on top of their ice cream.

Christopher Hitchens

The reading public isn't born that doesn't think foreigners are either funny or faintly sinister.

Christopher Hitchens

Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don't say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro. If something is worth hearing or listening to, it's very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice.

Gary Snyder

A reading is a kind of communion. The poet articulates the semi-known for the tribe.

Gaston Bachelard

Nobody knows that in reading we are re-living our temptations to be a poet. All readers who have a certain passion for reading, nurture and repress, through reading, the desire to become a writer.

Gao Xingjian

I hadn't originally intended to do any reading, what if I did read one book more or one book less, whether I read or not wouldn't make a difference, I would still be waiting to get cremated.

Freddie Hubbard

Man, you'd be surprised how much I'm learning - not only about myself, but about the musicians who came before me. You don't realize at first when you listen to Armstrong's records how great this man was and how hard that Hot Five music was to play. After the experience of reading and playing those parts, I have an even greater respect for Louis Armstrong than before

Freddie Highmore

I always tend to see, right after reading the script, the character and how I want to play it. I guess that's sort of most of the work, preparing for the role, but almost the creation of the character seems to go on as I read through the script.

Freddie Mercury

I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things. For example, when we're backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddy [sic] Mercury who seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd, which is something I totally admire and envy.

Frank Muir

The golden rule when reading the menu is, if you cannot pronounce it, you cannot afford it.

George Carlin

When I'm not actually doing my work, I'm planning it or thinking about it or reading things that on some level are transformed into performance fantasies. I have no active interests. I never go anywhere or do anything that transports me outside the boundaries of my mind.