“[Vathek] has, in parts, been called, but to some judgments, never is, dull: it is certainly in parts, grotesque, extravagant and even nasty. But Beckford could plead sufficient "local colour" for it, and a contrast, again almost Shakespearean, between the flickering farce atrocities of the beginning and the sombre magnificence of the end. Beckford's claims, in fact, rest on the half-score or even half-dozen pages towards the end: but these pages are hard to parallel in the later literature of prose fiction.” EndsHardFactsLiteratureHalfFictionJudgmentPagesClaimsLocalsSufficientColourDullProseScoreDozenContrastNastyParallelsAtrocitiesExtravagantGrotesqueMagnificenceFarce Author:William Thomas Beckford
“I'm trying to read/edit my story as if I have no existing knowledge of the story, no investment in it, no sense of what Herculean effort went into writing page 23, no pretensions as to why the dull patch on page 4 is important for the fireworks that will happen on page 714.” IfsWritingTryingImportantStoriesHappensEffortPagesInvestmentDullPatchesEditsPretensionFireworks Author:George Saunders
“There is nothing simple or dull in achieving the transparent page. Vulgar ostentation is twice as easy as discipline. When you realise that ugly typography never effaces itself, you will be able to capture beauty as the wise men capture happiness by aiming at something else.” MenAbleEasySimpleWiseAchieveDisciplinePagesUglyDullRealisingCaptureVulgarTransparentTypographyOstentation Author:Beatrice Warde
“Every so often I take out a volume and read a page or two. After all, reading is looking after in a manner of speaking. Though they're not old enough to be valuable for their age alone, nor important enough to be sought after by collectors, my charges are dear to me, even if, as often as not, they are as dull on the inside as on the outside. No matter how banal the contents, there is always something that touches me. For someone now dead once thought these words significant enough to write them down.” IfsWritingTwoImportantMatterEnoughAgeReadingPagesDearValuableSignificantDullVolumeCollectorsTouch Me Book:The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel Source: The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
“A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.” MenBookBeautifulReadingSunPagesWingsBraveUglyCleverFlightFirmDullWetFeathersRemindersCowardlyFlowering Author:John Steinbeck
“I read it [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.” ThinkingMenShouldLittlesDoeWarDealsDutyKingsPagesInventionOddDullWearyPopeQuarrelsTiresomePestilenceVex Book:Northanger abbey [followed by] Persuasion Source: Northanger abbey [followed by] Persuasion