“To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.” IfsKnowsGivingLongBookPastAsksGivenAnswersWrittenPeriodsAsk MeThis DayGiven Up Author:V. S. Naipaul
“Literature makes history come to life. It is maybe the most accurate depiction of history, especially literature that was written in the time period depicted in the story.” StoriesLiteratureWrittenPeriodsAccurateDepictionTime Periods Author:Amy Harmon
“Since the songs were written over a five-year period, I think these are little snapshots. Some people call it political or topical, but I think each song is self-contained. I think it fits together as a picture of the last half-decade of time.” PeopleThinkingYearsLittlesSelfTogetherLastsPoliticalSongHalfFiveWrittenPeriodsFitDecadesFive YearsSnapshotsSelf Contained Author:Conor Oberst
“if I'd thought that nobody would like it as I was writing it, I would have written it even more. But I never think of the audience. I never think of people reading. I never think of people, period.” PeopleIfsThinkingWritingReadingAudienceWrittenPeriods Author:Jamaica Kincaid
“It is only comparatively primitive machinery that affords a stimulus, and there is already a faint period touch about Pacific 231 and Le Pas d'Acier. One feels...that Prokofieff should have written ballets about the spinning jenny and the Luddite riots; that Honegger should have been there to celebrate the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the death of Huskisson with a "Symphonie Triomphale et Funèbre".” FeelsShouldHas BeensFunWrittenPeriodsShould HaveOpeningCelebratePrimitiveMachinerySpinningStimulusShould Have BeenRiotPacificRailwayJenny Author:Constant Lambert
“There have been 50 or 60 books written about Empress Orchid, but none of them bothered to really examine the period in China when she lived. I was taught that she was evil; it's in all the textbooks.” Has BeensBookEvilWrittenTaughtPeriodsChinaBotheredTextbooksOrchidsEmpresses Author:Anchee Min
“Barrie and the wonderful characters he created, Lewis Carroll, even French literature, like Baudelaire or over in the States, Poe, you open those books, you open The Flowers of Evil and begin to read. If it were written today, you'd be absolutely stupefied by the work. It's this incredible period where the work is timeless, ageless. So yeah, I just love all those guys. It's my deep passion in those great 19th century writers.” IfsBookStatesCharacterTodayGuyPassionEvilLiteratureWonderfulWrittenCenturyFlowerPeriodsYeahIncrediblesWorking ItTimeless19th CenturyAgelessFrench LiteratureBaudelaireDeep Passion Author:Johnny Depp
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.” MenCountryPoliticalWrittenGenerationsPeriodsOur CountryRemarkableStanding OutBryan Author:William Howard Taft
“Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven't had time to know how much better it ought to be.” KnowsMindHas BeensTwoIdeasLastsEnjoyKnow HowWrittenHavensOughtPeriodsPagesGlorious Author:J. B. Priestley
“I'm from Toronto. It's a lot more laid back. When you are thrust into different environments, there is an odd adaptation period. And then there are times when unfair, unkind, untrue things are written about you. That bothers me less now.” DifferentEnvironmentWrittenPeriodsBotherOddUnfairAdaptationThrustBack WhenUntrueUnkindTorontoLaid BackDifferent Environments Author:Mike Myers
“Music is neither old nor modern: it is either good or bad music, and the date at which it was written has no significance whatever. Dates and periods are of interest only to the student of musical history. . . . All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago. All good music, whatever its date, is ageless - as alive and significant today as it was when it was written” TodayThreeSoundInterestAliveWrittenModernCenturyStudentsPeriodsMusic IsMusicalYesterdaySignificantSignificanceOld FashionedAgelessOld MusicBad Music Author:Peter Warlock
“There have been periods in my life where I have experienced depression. It has been through some of my darkest moments that I have written some of my best songs. For me, singing and writing is very therapeutic. It's much more effective than taking Prozac!” WritingHas BeensMomentsSongWrittenPeriodsSingingTherapeuticProzac Author:Gerry Rafferty
“I should have written more. I should have written more during the period when I just liked so much doing the political work in the streets.” ShouldPoliticalWrittenStreetsPeriodsShould Have Author:Grace Paley
“Michel Houellebecq is the most interesting, provocative and important European novelist of my generation. Period. No one else comes close. He has written two or maybe three great books, and his latest, The Map and the Territory, is one of them.” TwoImportantBookThreeInterestingWrittenGenerationsPeriodsNovelistsMapsTerritoryMost InterestingMy GenerationProvocativeGreat Book Author:Bret Easton Ellis
“I never try to force poems into a collection simply because they were written/published within a certain period of time. They will eventually find their perfect home.” TryingHomeCertainForcePerfectWrittenPeriodsCollections Author:Rigoberto Gonzalez
“So many times, I will have people tell me what I did when I was younger. There's so much being written [about] the early Beatles period, and even pre-Beatles period. And people will say, "Oh, he did that because that, and that happened because of that." And I'll be reading and think, "Well, that didn't happen" and, "That's not why I did that." Like anyone's history, you remember what went down better than people who weren't there.” PeopleThinkingWellsHappensRememberReadingWrittenHappenedPeriods Author:Paul McCartney
“We've just gone through this period of years where the players in the game were at least written about as being a Democratic administration, establishment Republicans, and then the rabble-rousing radicals of the tea party. And it was like a three-way negotiation between them. But we are going to enter an era where there's a physical, powerful, vibrant progressive movement that will, I think, be able to exercise power in the same way as the right-wing and the right does.” ThinkingWayYearsDoeAbleThreeGamesPowerfulPartyGonePlayerWrittenMovementPeriodsExerciseRepublicanWingsDemocraticRadicalAdministrationTeaErasProgressiveEstablishmentNegotiationRight WingTea PartyThree WaysProgressive Movement Author:Ben Wikler
“The Bible was written between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and it's filled with the knowledge that people had in that period of time, some of which you and I rejected long ago. The Bible says that women are property, that homosexuals ought to be put to death, that anybody who worships a false God ought to be executed, that a child that talks back to his parents ought to be stoned at the gates of the city. Those ideas are absurd.” PeopleYearsChildrenLongIdeasParentCitiesWrittenOughtPeriodsWorshipYears AgoFilledPropertyAbsurdGatesLong AgoRejectedHomosexualFalse Gods Author:John Shelby Spong
“I'd just written the book Ocean Of Sound, and this terrible thing happened in my life: my wife committed suicide. I was a single parent because of that; I was completely shattered. I had a book that I'd just finished that had been produced through a really, really terrible period, but I had managed to finish it.” BookParentSoundWifeWrittenHappenedPeriodsTerribleOceanSuicideCommittedMy WifeFinishedThings HappenTerrible ThingsShatteredSingle Parent Author:David Toop
“I don't set out to write a play a year. Sometimes I've written two plays a year. There was a period of a year and half when I only wrote half a play. If it depresses some critics that I seem prolific, well, that's their problem as much as mine.” IfsWritingYearsWellsTwoSometimesPlayProblemSeemsHalfWrittenMinesPeriodsCriticsDepressing Book:Conversations with Edward Albee Source: Conversations with Edward Albee
“Basically I see that song as a bunch of images which I threw together to represent the fact that I was seeing one girl and then I started seeing another, and it was just the guilt in between those two periods. The ballads I've written since have been about things that really hurt me.” Has BeensTwoFactsTogetherSongGirlHurtWrittenSeeingPeriodsGuiltBunchHurt MeBallads Author:George Michael
“I don't think I'll write a large novel again because it was like being in jail for me. Even though that's the funniest book I've ever written, it was the saddest period of my life.” ThinkingWritingBookNovelWrittenPeriodsJailSaddest Author:Sandra Cisneros