“All we need to do, reader or writer, from first line to final page, is be as open as a book, and be alive to the life in language - on all its levels.” NeedsFirstsBookLanguageLinesLevelsAliveReaderPagesFinals Author:Ali Smith
“I think you will agree that I am alive in every part of this book; turn back twenty, thirty, one hundred pages - I am back there. That is why I hate the story; characters are not snakes that they must shed their skins on every page - there can only be one action: what a man is. When you have understood this, you will be through with novels.” ThinkingMenWritingBookCharacterStoriesActionHateTurnsNovelAlivePagesUnderstoodHundredSkinsI HateTwentiesAgreeThirtyShedSnakesI Am Alive Author:Kenneth Patchen
“Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact? The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is like the fallout from a vast explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal but life-giving.” GivingKindFactsJoyJesusChurchAliveNewsPagesSilentMissionsRejectedTestamentExplosionsNew TestamentFallouts Book:The Gospel in a Pluralist Society Source: The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
“Michael Bohn provides a rare opportunity to experience the American sporting scene in the Roaring Twenties. A constant stream of legendary characters marches across these pages. You’ll meet them all: The Babe, The Four Horsemen, The Manassa Manassas Mauler, The Wheaton Iceman, Bill Tilden, Gertrude Ederle, and Grantland Rice, the sportswriter whose purple prose made them all come alive.” MadeCharacterOpportunityFourAliveScenePagesTwentiesBillsConstantStreamsProseMarchPurpleRiceBabeLegendaryRoaringHorsemenGertrudeFour HorsemenRare OpportunitiesRoaring Twenties Author:Peter Golenbock
“Boswell's Johnson is the word made flesh... an extemporaneous man talking himself into the thick of every occasion (in a world ofoccasions if nothing else) and therefore no monument at all but all that can be saved of a man alive in the pages of a book.” IfsMenWorldMadeBookTalkingAlivePagesFleshSavedOccasionsThickMonumentJohnsonPortraitureEvery Occasion Book:Books are Not Life, But Then, what Is? Source: Books are Not Life, But Then, what Is?
“A lot of times, you're not necessarily off the page because you haven't been able to take the time to prepare a character. It's very easy to find even great actors reading it more like a reading. Things aren't really coming alive yet, even though you know they will.” KnowsCharacterAbleReadingActorsEasyAliveHavensPagesGreat Actors Author:Gus Van Sant
“You have no idea what's going to happen [in Downton Abbey] until you get the script. We roughly knew a couple of the key points that were going to happen, but when I got the last episode, I turned to the last page to check that I was still alive.” StillsIdeasHappensLastsAliveKeysCouplePagesScriptsChecksNo IdeaEpisodesAbbey Author:Hugh Bonneville
“I'm not so in with the prescriptive avant-garde agenda. I can do that sort of thing, but I feel that I'm still interested enough in song structure. When I look at a lyric on the page, the lyric is alive to me, looking like soldiers in a field. I can move it around, and it's very black-and-white.” FeelsLooksStillsI CanEnoughMovingSongBlackCan DoWhiteAliveFieldsPagesStructureSoldierAgendasBlack And WhiteAvant Garde Author:Scott Walker
“I'm not one of those actors who likes to analyze things too much, so I trust what the writers are doing with the characters, in order to give them their journey. My job is to come in and try to make those words on the page come alive on camera.” GivingTryingCharacterJobsOrderActorsToo MuchAliveJourneyPagesCamerasLikes Author:John Barrowman
“But stories don't end. They continue as long as you're alive. You just have to get on with things. Turn the page, start a new chapter, find out what's in store for you next, and keep your fingers crossed that it's not too awful. Even if you know in your heart and soul that it most probably will be.” IfsKnowsHeartLongSoulEndsStoriesTurnsNextAlivePagesFingersStoresAwfulChaptersHeart And SoulFingers Crossed Author:Darren Shan
“Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page, or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor and it comes alive, in a way that you didn't expect.” WayGivingDifferentActorsAliveWonderfulCreaturesPagesInstruments Author:Kelly Masterson
“One of the things that will keep The Front Page burning bright as long as newspapers are alive is the myth that newspapermen are breezy and raffish. What other play has for so long fed the self-image of journalists?” LongSelfPlayAliveFrontsPagesMythNewspapersBurningJournalistFedsBreezyBurning Bright Author:Jay Carr
“It felt like an indulgence. Going back was painful, but, at the same time, it was nice to live with them again for a few pages. I got to live with my brother again for the entire book. Of course as I'm writing the book, I'm getting closer and closer to the end and I know what that means. I knew exactly where I was heading. It was really difficult, but it was nice to make them come alive for those scenes. It was good.” KnowsWritingMeanBookEndsCoursesFeltDifficultNiceAliveBrotherScenePagesPainfulMy BrotherIndulgenceHeadings Author:Jesmyn Ward
“In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.” WellsMadeBookSometimesMatterDoneJobsLinesAliveDesignFieldsPagesLettersHorseBreadDesignerSeatsStarvingMarginsMillsStaleAisleTypographyPrinterMutton Author:Robert Bringhurst
“After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture, which of course, it was impossible to express in words. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no long expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity.” WorldLongIdeasSelfHomeBeautifulCoursesFoundSpeakFeltMy OwnInterestingSilenceTalkingAliveImpossibleStrangeConversationPagesConstantDimensionsDistractionYearningInteriorsCompelledInner SelfTexturePerplexityExpressing Ideas Author:Karen Armstrong
“Writing is.... being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.” IfsWritingMindWholeFeelingsAbleFormSpiritBlackWhiteVisionEnvironmentAliveReaderPagesCalmStoresTinySymbolsSmokeCombinationTenseAdaptedPhysicalityGeniesNew Environment Author:Mary Gaitskill
“Meggie Folchart: Having writer's block? Maybe I can help. Fenoglio: Oh yes, that's right. You want to be a writer, don't you? Meggie Folchart: You say that as if it's a bad thing. Fenoglio: Oh no, it's just a lonely thing. Sometimes the world you create on the page seems more friendly and alive than the world you actually live in.” IfsWorldWantI CanSometimesHelpingSeemsAlivePagesLonelyBlockFriendlyBad ThingsWriter's Block Author:Cornelia Funke