Bell > Bell's Quotes

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”
― Albert Camus

“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”
― Cornelia Funke

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”
― Muriel Rukeyser

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”
― George R.R. Martin

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?”
― Christopher Paolini

“Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction -- Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn ... No -- Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it was what prayed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and the short-winded elations of men.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“But he knew that he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously - eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand”
― F Scott Ftzgerald

“Ty reached out and brushed Kit’s hair away from his face, an absent sort of gesture that sent a shot of something through Kit, a feeling like he’d touched a live electrical fence.”
― Cassandra Clare, Queen of Air and Darkness

“Alec and I are unafraid to express our manly love,” said Jace. “Sometimes he carries me around like a swooning damsel.”
“Really?” said Kit.
“No,” said Jace. “I’m very heavy, especially when fully armed. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Actually, that,” said Kit.
“My weight?”
― Cassandra Clare, Queen of Air and Darkness

“He remembered something about darkness, about pressure and weighted blankets and silence. Though he had no idea how he was going to get hold of any of those things up on top of a building.

"Tell me," Kit said. Tell me what you need.

"Put your arms around me," said Ty. His hands were pale blue blurs in the air, as if Kit were looking at a time-lapsed photo. "Hold on to me."

He was still rocking. After a moment, Kit put his arms around Ty, not knowing what else to do.”
― Cassandra Clare, Lord of Shadows

“He grinned, and the grin changed his face completely. Ty when he was still and expressionless had an intensity that fascinated Kit; when he was smiling, he was extraordinary.”
― Cassandra Clare, Lord of Shadows

“Ty was near Kit, as he almost always was, like a magnet clicking into place.”
― Cassandra Clare, Queen of Air and Darkness

“Ty’s not my shadow,” said Kit crossly.
“My apologies. I suppose you’re his.”
― Cassandra Clare, Queen of Air and Darkness

“Kit burst out laughing. Ty looked even more astonished than he had when Kit had said he'd miss him. But after a second, he started to laugh too. They were both laughing, Kit doubled up over the blankets, when Magnus came into the room. He looked at the two of them and shook his head.

"Bedlam," he said, and went over to the counter where the glass tubes and funnels had been set up.”
― Cassandra Clare, Lord of Shadows

“Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. I think his parents may have gone a little overboard. It's like naming someone Magnificent Bastard.”
― Cassandra Clare, Lady Midnight

“I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those words which express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words are not meant to stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.”
― Natsume Soseki, Kokoro

“I do not want your admiration now, because I do not want your insults in the future. I bear with my loneliness now, in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead. You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro

“After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other. The Transition has enabled us to be less hypocritical.”
― Agustina Bazterrica, Tender Is the Flesh

“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistencies of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You mustn’t force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex—that’s quite a thought, isn’t it?”
― Mary McCarthy, The Group:

“All I knew that night was that I believed in something and couldn’t express it, while your team believed in nothing but knew how to say it—in other men’s words.”
― Mary McCarthy, The Group:

“Elinor was always firmly convinced of other people’s hypocrisy since she could not believe that they noticed less than she did.”
― Mary McCarthy, The Group

“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“You have everything but one thing: madness. A man needs a little madness or else - he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek