Novelist Quotes

I push every day against forces that say you have to go faster, be more effective, be more productive, you have to constantly outdo yourself, you have to constantly outdo your neighbor - all of the stuff that creates an incredibly productive society, but also a very neurotic one.

God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.

There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.

Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress.

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.

The color of truth is gray.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself-and thus make yourself indispensable.

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

Getting even is one reason for writing.

For the speedy reader paragraphs become a country the eye flies over looking for landmarks, reference points, airports, restrooms, passages of sex.

To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!

My heart burnt within me with indignation and grief; we could think of nothing else. All night long we had only snatches of sleep, waking up perpetually to the sense of a great shock and grief. Every one is feeling the same. I never knew so universal a feeling.