Off with you! You’re a happy fellow, for you’ll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!
Ludwig van BeethovenI’ve just always been a reader.
Kevin GatesContempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
Bertrand RussellA reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.
Margaret AtwoodIf you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers.
Vivienne WestwoodHe is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
EpictetusIt is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.
George OrwellHe is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
SocratesThe most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.
J. K. RowlingAn author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.
Terry PratchettI didn’t want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that’s a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I’m proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.
Haruki MurakamiDickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page.
Terry PratchettMr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.
Oscar WildeThe palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.
Benjamin DisraeliThere is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
Henry David ThoreauA son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.
Niccolo MachiavelliThe components of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger do not exist independently of you in the world. They simply do not exist in the physical world, even though we talk about them as if they do.
Wayne DyerPolitics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.
Dwight D. EisenhowerIf one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?
Virginia WoolfYou want to be a writer? Start writing. You want to be a filmmaker? Start shooting stuff on your phone right now.
Matthew McConaugheyEverybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.
John WayneWere it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
Samuel JohnsonIf a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThere is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.
Walt Disney‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘
Brian EnoThe atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.
George OrwellI really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.
Paul AusterYou see the film, you might be entertained, and if it’s not a great film, it loses its power very quickly. I think even simply acceptable books stay with us a lot longer.
Paul AusterIf women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
H. L. MenckenPlot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.
Terry PratchettMan’s only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.
John RuskinI know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, ‚No. No, I’m finished. Bye.‘ And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.
Maya AngelouLove is the one wild card.
Taylor SwiftMy faith helps me understand that circumstances don’t dictate my happiness, my inner peace.
Denzel WashingtonI think I work much harder on the children’s books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I’ve never been quite certain why this is.
Terry PratchettWhen you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.
The WeekndSome of the stories I admire seem to zero in on one particular time and place. There isn’t a rule about this. But there’s a tidy sense about many stories I read. In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.
Alice MunroWondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance – the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it; better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.
Thomas CarlyleAn author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.
F. Scott FitzgeraldHistory should be written as philosophy.
VoltaireWhen a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.
Oscar WildeStorytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don’t go there to swim, then those young people don’t have to find out by trial and error.
Margaret AtwoodWhen I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.
Margaret AtwoodThere are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
William Makepeace ThackerayAnger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaAny of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘
Joel OsteenThe longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.
Pierre Teilhard de ChardinWhen I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess.
Maya AngelouI’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.
Ernest HemingwayWriting is like anything else – the more you do it, the better you get at it, the easier it comes, and the less concerned you’ll be about what’s going to happen to it, where it’s going, what it sounds like, whether it’s right.
Wayne DyerIf you’re living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important.
Ray BradburyIf virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.
EpictetusJournalism keeps you planted in the earth.
Ray BradburyThe glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Thomas JeffersonPeople say I look so happy – and I say, ‚That’s the Botox.‘
Dolly PartonMoney ain’t everything.
Dolly PartonBut I think we’re also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They’ve seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There’s so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.
Keanu ReevesI don’t think I get that upset over things.
Abby Lee MillerCulture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
Mahatma GandhiIn writing, I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation.
Paulo Coelho