PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

Knowledge for a writer is like a compass for a sailor.

She realized, when relationships failed to last, it was not because love was no longer present, but because people had stopped believing in themselves and in their partners.

Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.

Apparently, faith in life is one thing and faith in literature is another.

Phaedra keeps saying she’s being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can’t deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his.” “And have...

Walking into a bookshop is a depressing thing. It’s not the pretentious twats, browsing books as part of their desirable lifestyle. It’s not the scrubby members of staff serving at the counter: the pseudo-hippies and...

Shit, man, if you see a dog scratching at the dirt trying to dig something up, walk away real fast,” he said, then pulled a little square of paper from his pocket and swallowed whatever...

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

PUBLISH, n. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.

I realize I’m far from perfect every time I step on the golf course

Besides,love is only a feeling.

He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went...

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel

Love enters later in life through the cracks left by the first heartbreak.

We can’t handle absence anymore, anything is better than the blankness; the quiet of nothingness. People fight to put images of love and hate – both equally nauseating – between themselves and the blank space...

The two smallest boys were cut down first, bodies bounding in different directions as they were shot from opposite sides of the field, like pinballs caught in a tight corner.

We lie on the blanket, our bare bodies basking in the sun like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Only our apples were bitten a long time ago, and we ate them too.

Who’s to say what a ‘literary life’ is? As long as you are writing often, and writing well, you don’t need to be hanging-out in libraries all the time. Nightclubs are great literary research centers....

Literary and political work helps people to ged rid of stereotypes

For a writer to sit before a blank page, as a painter before a white canvass or general before a bloodless field; before the first scribble of creation, is a moment like no other. The...

This was a lucky recollection — it saved her from something like regret.

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.

I believe a family just isn’t complete without skeletons. My dearest momma clean bit off my daddy’s nose right around the time they divorced.

I think he is unassailable from a literary point of view, … On the other hand, there may be some people who think he’s too established.

That Yank glean is long gone anyway; money, sex, power, it’s gone global – no one has a monopoly on it anymore. The towering skyscrapers of New York had fallen long before the second plane;...

Darkness crept through. Shadows pried at doors, teased dull edges of recollections that never quite took hold. Memories that would have shriveled under the blinding sun of daylight. And reason.

They never opened the door which leads to the soul.

A girl without braidsis like a city without bridges.

Short story collections are the literary equivalent of canapés, tapas and mezze in the world of gastronomy: Delightful assortments of tasty morsels to whet the reader’s appetite.

How the story will turn out I never know; but that it will, I am confident.

When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail’s response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, “My bursting heart must find vent at my...

I’ve always felt that good writing does not have to be literary.

And in a land accustomed to so much anguish, Chase tried to be careful with words. His soccer moms began assigningnicknames during the first day of official practice: Difom, Kakas, Kochma, and Maldyok, which roughly...

Reality is shaped by the forces that destroy it.

Let the enemy fall by their swords. Words not worth reading die their own death. But our Words will be Told!

The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialized to be tackled by the regular force. There were thirty departments in all, starting at the more mundane...

It’s a truth universally acknowledged…

Ô, wine!, the truth-serum so potent that all those who wish to live happy lives should abstain from drinking it entirely!… except of course when they are alone.

…it occurred to me that I could use the energy I had been putting into endurance to change my life. Yet the concept of brunt, of accepting and enduring, still seems to me to have...

When daily you write intensively, one day of laziness subjects you to a suffering of unfamiliar compunction. The words can freeze and the state of privation worsens with idleness. Thus, a day off for a...

Because you live to love and love to live/ And because of what your heardrum will give/ Now we might love to live and live to love.

I can’t bear literary snobbery.

Do you think you could kill a person and not get all crazy about it?

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

Just like literature, wine takes time to learn. Before having access to the emotion of a stunning poem or to the vigor of a captivating novel, we all had to go through a long initiation....

Her eyes were a rich dark brown that were so deep, they reminded me of my sleepless nights, awake, staring into complete darkness. I felt compelled to look deeper, searching for something inside her, but...

The Bishop blessed him and helped him to his feet.”May God have mercy on you,” he said. And erased him from his heart.

. . . a statement that is repugnant to one’s beliefs can be as true as one that is pleasurable.