Seth Pyle > Seth's Quotes

“Whatever the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth -whether it existed before or not”
― John Keats

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.”
― Iain M. Banks

“Fantasy? That's for the Fire Birds. Fantasy, even when it takes science-fictional forms, which it often does, is dangerous. It is escapist. It is daydreaming. It has nothing to do with the world and the world's problems.
So said the snobs who did not know themselves as snobs.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen & the Art of Writing

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“All good things are wild and free.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”
― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Good music always defeats bad luck.”
― Jack Vance

“What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously. "I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue.”
― Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earth

“I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.”
― Jack Vance, Cugel the Clever

“I am not Cugel the Clever for nothing!”
― Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earth

“Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with my magic.”
― Jack Vance

“Beauty is a luster which love bestows to guile the eye. Therefore it may be said that only when the brain is without love will the eye look and see no beauty.”
― jack vance

“What is an evil man? The man is evil who coerces obedience to his private ends, destroys beauty, produces pain, extinguishes life.”
― Jack Vance

“Such are the ways of the world," said Nisbet. "Still, you have much of your life ahead, with many great deeds to do, while I look back on my life with my deeds already done, and none of them terribly significant."

Cugel said: "When the sun goes out, all deeds, significant or not, will be forgotten together.”
― Jack Vance, Cugel's Saga