All Quotes By Tag: Humor

“Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.”

“To write a novel, you need an iron butt.”

“Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune, and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compress, compress…Actually, when you think about it, not many novels in the Spare tradition are terribly cheerful. Jokes you can usually pluck out whole, by the roots, so if you’re doing some heavy-duty prose-weeding, they’re the first to go. And there’s some stuff about the whole winnowing process I just don’t get. Why does it always stop when the work in question has been reduced to sixty or seventy thousand words–entirely coincidentally, I’m sure, the minimum length for a publishable novel? I’m sure you could get it down to twenty or thirty if you tried hard enough. In fact, why stop at twenty or thirty? Why write at all? Why not just jot the plot and a couple of themes down on the back of an envelope and leave it at that? The truth is, there’s nothing very utilitarian about fiction or its creation, and I suspect that people are desperate to make it sound manly, back-breaking labor because it’s such a wussy thing to do in the first place. The obsession with austerity is an attempt to compensate, to make writing resemble a real job, like farming, or logging. (It’s also why people who work in advertising put in twenty-hour days.) Go on, young writers–treat yourself to a joke, or an adverb! Spoil yourself! Readers won’t mind!”

“The Sun always rises. Unless, you’re on a space station, I guess…”

“I’ll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who’ll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.”

“loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shapeof a helicopter the same size as the helicopterand that’s it’s only skilland it isn’t good enoughbut it’s still amazing.”

“Secretly, deep down, everybody on Earth believes they can write poetry, apart from the members of the Poets’ Guild, who know they can’t.”

“He smacked the heel of his hand against his forhead, as if that could knock the mental picture out of his head. Hell, he though irritably, he didn’t want to knock the image just out of his head. He wanted to send it clear across the room and out the window.”

“I’m well aware that this—that I—am the first man to ever do this to her. And yes, as a guy, thatfact makes it even better.You know who Neil Armstrong is, don’t you?Now tell me who the second guy was. Hell, tell me any other guy you know who made it to themoon after him. You can’t, can you? That’s why this is such a rush.She’ll never forget this.She’ll always remember…me.Maybe that’s chauvinistic and egotistical, but it’s the truth.-Drew Evans”

“Tell me of this Wizard Howl of yours”. Sophie’s teeth chattered but she said proudly, “He’s the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he’d only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he’s sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can’t pin him down to anything.”

“I’m a big believer in first impressions,” he finally said. “Tell me what your first thought was when Jason walked into the courtroom.”Taylor took a sip of her drink and grinned. This one was easy. “I vowed to hate him forever.”Jeremy’s brown eyes twinkled at this. “That’s exactly what I said nineteen years ago, five minutes after he first walked into our dorm room.”

“History is gossip that’s been legitimized, and that’s really the case when you get into some of the Roman historians. Wow! They’d be right at home on reality tv.”

“A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument…and the occasional bar fight.”

“Jeremy and Karl and Elizabeth have known each other since the first day of kindergarten. Amy and Talis are a year younger…Now the five are inseparable; invincible. They imagine that life will always be like this–like a television show in eternal syndication–that they will always have each other. They use the same vocabulary. They borrow each other’s books and music. They share lunches, and they never say anything when Jeremy comes over and takes a shower. They all know Jeremy’s father is eccentric. He’s supposed to be eccentric. He’s a novelist.”

“So, many years later there were many who still complained and questioned, ‘Why must you pick up Christians and Hindus in your ambulance?’ And I was saying, ‘Because the ambulance is more Muslim than you’.”