“The four walls of paper are like a prison because every idea wants to spring out in all directions - everything is connected with everything else, sometimes more than others.” WantIdeasSometimesFourWallPaperSpringPrisonConnectedFour Walls Author:Ted Nelson
“I like things to be orderly. For seven years I ate at Bob's Big Boy. I would go at 2:30, after the lunch rush. I ate a chocolate shake and four, five, six, seven cups of coffee-with lots of sugar. And there's lots of sugar in that chocolate shake. It's a thick shake. In a silver goblet. I would get a rush from all this sugar, and I would get so many ideas! I would write them on these napkins. It was like I had a desk with paper. All I had to do was remember to bring my pen, but a waitress would give me one if I remembered to return it at the end of my stay. I got a lot of ideas at Bob's.” IfsGivingWritingYearsIdeasEndsBigsRememberBoysFiveFourReturnPaperSixGive MeSevenCoffeeCupsRememberedShakesSilverChocolatePensLunchSugarThickBobDesksSeven YearsOrderlyCoffee CupWaitressNapkins Author:David
“So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.” PeopleThinkingYearsLongWould BeForgetFourPaperNewsTwentiesDecadesDisappointedPapersDroppingFinishingBad NewsExpectancyLife ExpectancyConvocation Author:Adrian Tan
“When you first sit down to write the first song, until you've maybe got three or four under your belt, it's always, to me, like a mountain to climb. You look at that one blank piece of paper and you think, `God, how many songs do I have to write here?' It always feels like pressure.” ThinkingFeelsWritingFirstsLooksSongThreePiecesFourMountainPaperPressureClimbsBlankBelts Author:Martin Gore
“A lawyer is sometimes required to search titles, and the client who thinks he has good right to an estate, puts the papers in his hands, and the attorney goes into the public records and finds everything right for three or four years back; but after a time he comes to a break in the title. So he finds that the man who supposed he owned it owns not an acre of the ground which belongs to someone else. I trace the title of this world from century to century until I find the whole right vested in God. Now to whom did he give it? To his own children. All are yours.” ThinkingMenWorldGivingYearsChildrenSometimesWholeHandsThreeBreakRecordsFourCenturyThis WorldHe ManPaperLawyerTitlesFour YearsClientsEstatesPapersAttorneyAcres Author:Thomas De Witt Talmage
“I blame the newspapers because every day they call our attention to insignificant things, while three or four times in our lives,we read books that contain essential things. Once we feverishly tear the band of paper enclosing our newspapers, things should change and we should find--I do not know--the Pensées by Pascal!” KnowsShouldBookThreeAttentionKnowledgeFourOur LivesTearsBandEssentialsPaperNewsBlameNewspapersPensInsignificantPascalInsignificant Things Author:Marcel Proust
“In New York the other day, there was a pro-Martha Stewart rally. Only four people showed up ... and three of them were made out of crepe paper!” PeopleMadeThreeFourNew YorkPaperCrepes Author:Conan O'Brien
“I do not begin my novel at the beginning, I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four, I do not go dutifully from one page to the next, in consecutive order; no, I pick out a bit here and a bit there, till I have filled all the gaps on paper. This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times.” WritingWholeStoriesOrderThreeNextBitsNovelFourPaperPagesPicksFilledCardsGapsChaptersConsecutive Author:Vladimir Nabokov
“The thing about how that process works is that it's more about the editing and time for judging the ideas. Most pieces I publish each week have been around for months. This is a response to the beginning of the strip, when I was making them so quickly. I would just conceive a piece, finish it, and then the next day see it in the paper. That was when I was doing dailies four days a week.” Has BeensIdeasNextProcessPiecesFourWeekJudgingMonthsPaperResponseEditingNext DayPublish Author:Paul Madonna