S Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with S. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Some writers just write about their own lives. Well, I don't want to do that. I want to have a really boring life. A quiet, boring life so no one wants to write a biography. I'm the only writer in history only to have one wife, for instance.”
“Some writers keep a tighter rein on that than others. For short story collections I'm definitely in the loose-rein camp.”
“Some writers later, describing the events of that night and day, wrote that Wan'yen of the Altai had seen a spirit-dragon of the river and become afraid. Writers do that sort of thing. They like dragons in their tales.”
“Some writers like to boil down headlines of liberal newspapers into fiction, so they say there shouldn't be communal riots, everybody should love each other, there shouldn't be boundaries or fundamentalism. But I think literature is more than that; these are political views which most of us hold anyway.”
“Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy; for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity.”
Source: A treatise on political economy
“Some writers may toy with the fancy of a ‘Christ-myth,’ but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the ‘Christ-myth’ theories.”
“Some writers might tell you that writing is like a piece of magic - a process of creating something out of nothing, and I guess I used to think about it that way too a long long time ago. But as I've lived my life and loved and lost friends and family, and seen dreams smashed and resurrected, and marveled at the pettiness, drear ambition and ignorance of the herd of which I am a part, I can no longer say that a poem or a story or a script comes from nothing. If it's any good, if it has any power, any potent emotional body, then it's something that a writer has paid for, not only in time, but in all the anxiety that accompanies living and those small fret-filled acts of becoming present that make it possible for us to see beyond our little patch of immediacy. It's not just a reaching out, but a reaching in, into the depths of our being from whence we've sprung.”
“Some writers pick a topic and write around that, but I like to include it all.”
“Some writers probe their quest for individuality; others explore loneliness, anxiety, and sense of alienation. Writers lament injustice, grief, and dejection. Some writers devote their efforts to an appraisal of ontological torment. Some writers seek to examine the implications of life and death by reflecting upon the restrictions and insufficiency of the human condition. Some writers survey the ramifications of fractured human consciousness in an industrial and scientific community undergoing rapid technological changes. Many writers attempt to release their inner tension and employ writing as a transformative process to effect personal change in their lives. If a person writes as they dream, they will encounter an inner world that assists them function in an awakened state.”
Source: Dead Toad Scrolls
“Some writers research in order to write. I write in order to research topics that interest me. Especially if I can meet with other people, in forums from illness support groups to phone-sex hotlines, and learn what other people know best.”
“Some writers say they cannot write in front of a window; many say they cannot function without almost perfect quiet. A writer with only two hours a day can write in the back of an open truck on the Interstate.”
Source: Castle of Days
“Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.”
“Some writers thrive on the contact with the commerce of success; others are corrupted by it. Perhaps, like losing one's virginity,it is not as bad (or as good) as one feared it was going to be.”
“Some writers whom I respect very much, like China Miéville and some others of the New Weird, consider the true role of fantasy to be not Tolkienesque consolation but subversion - a kind of rebe Ûllion from
complacency. Yes, I can see what is meant here. And I also see the need to change, to fix, to drastically improve the human lot.”
“Some writers would be kinder than others, I'm sure. Hopefully they might describe my techniques as a mixture of tried and tested formulas - if it aint broke don't fix it - and unexpected twists.”
“Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write.”
“Some writers' view of things depends upon the success of the final result. I'd rather stand or fall on my own concepts. But there is a fine line to be drawn between pointing up something or distorting it.”
Source: Conversations with Edward Albee
“Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them.”
Source: Monkeys with Typewriters: How to Write Fiction and Unlock the Secret Power of Stories
“Some writers, of course, simply write, as they feel they are driven to do, by outer/inner inspirations. If, after the work is written and, hopefully, published, others respond -- that is the Champagne. But we, or some of us, don't write for the Champagne. We write because we write.”
“Some writers, rejecting the idea which science had reached, that reefs of rocks could be due in any way to "animalcules," have talked of electrical forces, the first and last appeal of ignorance.”
Source: Corals and Coral Islands
“Some writing and production projects will be a great way to spend my elderly rock years.”
“Some writing courses will advise you to write what you know. I've always thought this is very odd advice ... because it means, for example, that I should not be writing about Nicholas Flamel, because I didn't live in France in the 15th Century, I was not an alchemyst, am not immortal (despite the rumours) and do not know magic.”
“Some writing is a really nice solitary process, in a way, because you can be a little self-conscious around other people. If it's just you, and you're at your favorite piano, or whatever instrument, and you feel comfortable, then somehow, I always feel like it's opening a door and letting whatever is to pass through pass.”
“Some yards is better than none yards?”
“Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
Source: Moby-Dick
“Some years ago a top Ford official was showing the late Walter Reuther through the very automates plant in Cleveland, Ohio and he said to him jokingly, "Walter, you'll have a hard time collecting union dues from these machines." and Walter said, "you are going to have more trouble trying to sell automobiles to them." Both of them let it stop there. There was a logical answer to that ... the owners of the machines could buy automobiles and if you increase the number of owners you increase the number of consumers.”
“Some years ago an excellent professor of economics told his class in his gravelly voice, 'If you pay me $50,000 a year to solve a problem, I damned sure ain't going to solve it.'”
“Some years ago, God miraculously saved my life from shooting incidence. I live to proclaim his goodness.”
“Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.”
“Some years ago, I felt that Iexperienced more limitations than possibilities in a spiritual organization, which I had belonged to for a long time. It became clear for me that I was prepared to expand, and take a new step in my spiritual growth. To be spiritual does not mean to belong to a spiritual group. I felt that I had grown out of the kindergarten, and my inner tree was bearing fruit.
Too many large trees cannot grow in a narrow area.
This was a lesson to stand on my own feet; it was a lesson for me to live my own life, to live my own truth, without following anybody else. I do not belong to any spiritual group or tradition. I am only interested in exploring what it means to live with open eyes. This lesson developed and expanded my inner being.
Many years ago, when I sat and meditated by a slow flowing river in India, it taught me that if I learnt to listen to the river, if I surrendered and became one with the river, I did not need any other teacher in meditation. This river could teach me all the mysteries of life. In the same way, everything can become a door to the secrets of life, for example a man or a woman, a tree, a bird, a stone or the blue sky, if we know how ro listen and surrender. It is such a deep joy, such a deep inner satisfaction, to feel that I belong to life, that I am one with Existence.
When Buddha was lying on his deathbed, and the disciples asked him if he had any last words for them, he said: Be a light to yourself. You are born with a light within you. You are enough to yourself. You are sufficient to yourself. Listen to the still small voice within, and that will guide you. Buddha defines wisdom as living in the light of our own consciousness. Buddha's message to be a light to yourself is a message to all seekers of truth and all meditators on the path of enlightenment. You have to be silent, so that you can listen to the still small voice within you. Follow your own voice in silence, love and deep trust. You have to follow the still, small voice within you and you have to follow your being.”
Source: Meditation: A Love Affair with the Whole - Thousand and One Flowers of Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Freedom, Beauty and the Divine
“Some years ago I gave a concert in the mountains with snow all around, and that was much colder.”
“Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like me. He wasn’t trying to be contentious, but he himself was a probation officer, working with troubled kids from the Indian reservation where he’d been raised. Day in, day out, he dealt in a concrete way with very concrete problems, well aware that his words and deeds could change young lives for good or ill.
I argued that certain stories are also capable of changing lives, addressing some of the same problems and issues he confronted in his daily work: problems of poverty, violence, and alienation, issues of culture, race, gender, and class...
“Stories aren’t real,” he told me shortly. “They don’t feed a kid left home in an empty house. Or keep an abusive relative at bay. Or prevent an unloved child from finding ‘family’ in the nearest gang.”
Sometimes they do, I tried to argue. The right stories, read at the right time, can be as important as shelter or food. They can help us to escape calamity, and heal us in its aftermath. He frowned, dismissing this foolishness, but his wife was more conciliatory. “Write down the names of some books,” she said. “Maybe we’ll read them.”
I wrote some titles on a scrap of paper, and the top three were by Charles de lint – for these are precisely the kind of tales that Charles tells better than anyone. The vital, necessary stories. The ones that can change and heal young lives. Stories that use the power of myth to speak truth to the human heart.
Charles de Lint creates a magical world that’s not off in a distant Neverland but here and now and accessible, formed by the “magic” of friendship, art, community, and social activism. Although most of his books have not been published specifically for adolescents and young adults, nonetheless young readers find them and embrace them with particular passion. I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people from troubled backgrounds say that books by Charles saved them in their youth, and kept them going.
Recently I saw that parole officer again, and I asked after his work. “Gets harder every year,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just getting old.” He stopped me as I turned to go. “That writer? That Charles de Lint? My wife got me to read them books…. Sometimes I pass them to the kids.”
“Do they like them?” I asked him curiously.
“If I can get them to read, they do. I tell them: Stories are important.”
And then he looked at me and smiled.”
“Some years ago I said in an opinion that if this country is a melting pot, then either the Afro-Americans didn't get in the pot or he didn't get melted down.”
“Some years ago I talked to a clever young Northern businessman, who prides himself on his culture, yet was shocked that Yale’s football team had chosen a Negro, Levi Jackson, as its captain. Such a mind, with all its outward trappings of modernity and elegance, is completely out of tune with the real world.”
Source: The Catholic Viewpoint on Race Relations
“Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.
On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”
And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”
And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.”
“Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.”
“Some years ago I was working on some forms which were vase forms with a fairly narrow base, and it was after [Hans] Coper had died that I saw an exhibition of his, a catalogue from an exhibition, and he was showing some forms which were made by cutting and joining a lot of different parts together to create what he called a spade form, which you can imagine looks a little bit like a shovel upside down.”
“Some years ago I wrote a book called The House on Eccles Street. To write this book I had to think my way into the existence of Marion Bloom...Marion Bloom was a figment of James Joyce's imagination. If I can think my way into the existence of a being who has never existed, then I can think my way into the existence of a bat or a chimpanzee or an oyster, any being with whom I share the substrate of life.”
“Some years ago John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in an essay on his efforts at writing a history of economics: 'As one approaches the present, one is filled with a sense of hopelessness; in a year and possibly even a month, there is now more economic comment in the supposedly serious literature than survives from the whole of the thousand years commonly denominated as the Middle Ages ... anyone who claims to be familiar with it all is a confessing liar.' I believe that all physicists would subscribe to the same sentiments regarding their own professional literature. I do at any rate.”
“Some years ago one oil company bought a fertilizer company, and every other major oil company practically ran out and bought a fertilizer company. And there was no more damned reason for all these oil companies to buy fertilizer companies, but they didn't know exactly what to do, and if Exxon was doing it, it was good enough for Mobil and vice versa.”
“Some years ago our Japanese counterparts asked us to resume the discussions of the issue and so we did meeting them halfway. Over the passed couple of years the contacts were practically frozen on the initiative of the Japanese side, not ours. At the same time, presently our partners have expressed their eagerness to resume discussions on this issue [the Kuril Islands].”
“Some years ago, there was a lovely philosopher of science and journalist in Italy named Giulio Giorello, and he did an interview with me. And I don’t know if he wrote it or not, but the headline in Corriere della Sera when it was published was "Sì, abbiamo un'anima. Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot – "Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made of lots of tiny robots." And I thought, exactly. That’s the view. Yes, we have a soul, but in what sense? In the sense that our brains, unlike the brains even of dogs and cats and chimpanzees and dolphins, our brains have functional structures that give our brains powers that no other brains have - powers of look-ahead, primarily. We can understand our position in the world, we can see the future, we can understand where we came from. We know that we’re here. No buffalo knows it’s a buffalo, but we jolly well know that we’re members of Homo sapiens, and it’s the knowledge that we have and the can-do, our capacity to think ahead and to reflect and to evaluate and to evaluate our evaluations, and evaluate the grounds for our evaluations.
It’s this expandable capacity to represent reasons that we have that gives us a soul. But what’s it made of? It’s made of neurons. It’s made of lots of tiny robots. And we can actually explain the structure and operation of that kind of soul, whereas an eternal, immortal, immaterial soul is just a metaphysical rug under which you sweep your embarrassment for not having any explanation.”
“Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.”
“Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.”
Source: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
“Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation.”
Source: Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus
“Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor’s New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations.”
“Some years ago, not long after I moved to Los Angeles from New York, I attended a television industry party. When a man asked my profession, I told him that I was a writer. He sipped his drink. "Half-hour or hour?" he inquired. There was a long silence. "Lifelong," I replied.”
“Some years ago, someone had come up with the idea that the State should hold all Titles to vehicles, mailing a Certificate of Title to the 'owners'. This created a legal fiction that the State owned the vehicles. Drivers were thus driving a State owned vehicle, mandating drivers must have a license to drive a State vehicle, which was false. The State reaped many millions with its drivers license scam, and began issuing heavy fines for not having a State license.”
“Some years ago, the federal government declared war on poverty, and poverty won.”
Source: Presidential address: State of the Union, Monday, January 25, 1988
“Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?”