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Prose Quotes

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Prose Quotes

“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

IfsKnowsWritingMayDoeEnoughFeelingsWaterMovementReaderDignityDuesProseHollowIcebergTip Of The Iceberg
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium. Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are, the more necessary it is to be plain.”

IfsShouldWritingLanguageImaginationAttentionWrittenStyleOughtPagesFaultsMediumsProseImaginativeNoticingPlain Language
Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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“In the camp, this meant committing my verse-many thousands of lines-to memory. To help me with this I improvised decimal counting beads and, in transit prisons, broke up matchsticks and used the fragments as tallies. As I approached the end of my sentences I grew more confident of my powers of memory, and began writing down and memorizing prose-dialogue at first, but then, bit by bit, whole densely written passages. My memory found room for them! It worked. But more and more of my time-in the end as much as one week every month-went into the regular repetition of all I had memorized.”

WritingFirstsEndsWholeHelpingUsedFoundBitsLinesMemoriesRoomsWrittenWeekGrewMonthsDown AndPrisonSentencesDialogueBrokeMy TimeProseHelp MeCampsPassagesVersesRepetitionFragmentsCountingBeadsBroke UpMemorizingDecimalsMatchsticks
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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“I assure you, my children, that when a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God. That is why I have told you so often, and hammered away at it, that the Christian vocation consists in making heroic verse out of the prose of each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge, my children, on the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday lives.”

HeartChildrenInspirationSeemsActionEarthChristianFaithHeavenEverydayChristian InspirationalMy ChildrenEach DayProseCarrieHorizonHeroicVersesEveryday LifeVocationInsignificantTranscendenceHeaven And EarthOverflowSanctifyHammeredTold You So
Author:Josemaria Escriva
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“I fear I have not one good word to say this fair morning, though the sun shines so encouragingly on the distant hills and gentle river and the trees are in their festive hues. I am not festive, though contented. When obliged to give myself to the prose of life, as I am on this occasion of being established in a new home I like to do the thing, wholly and quite, - to weave my web for the day solely from the grey yarn.”

LifeGivingHomeNatureMorningSunTreeFairsRiversShiningOccasionsHillsGentleProseGreyObligedHueSun ShinesNew HomeGood WordsFestiveYarn
Book:The letters of Margaret Fuller
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“The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn, and anybody is cheating who takes politics as a way out. All the outs are too easy, and the thing itself is too hard to do.”

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Book:By-Line Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades
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“My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director. ... (when asked who wrote 'Some Enchanted Evening') Rodgers and Hammerstein, if you can imagine it taking two men to write one song. ... Good authors, too, who once knew better words now use only four-letter words writing prose. ... Brush up your Shakespeare and they'll all kowtow.”

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Author:Cole Porter
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“For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed for it, for all the celebrations it has been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.”

MenHumansHas BeensSaidCertainSongLiteratureSeaObjectsProseFriendlyShoreCelebrationRestlessnessAccomplices
Book:Joseph Conrad’s Sea Tales - Premium Collection: An Outcast of the Islands, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, A Smile of Fortune, Typhoon and more: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)
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“Alethea Black can drop you into a dream with a single sentence, then convince you it's real. Her characters' best hopes and worst fears usually come to pass, often in fabulous ways, but their adventures feel inevitable and true-not only because Ms. Black richly imagines her people, but because she loves them. I Knew You'd Be Lovely is a lovely debut, with masterful prose and inspired invention on every page.”

PeopleWayFeelsRealCharacterDreamBlackImagineWorstAdventurePagesInspiredSentencesLovelyInventionInevitableProseConvinceFabulousHoping For The BestDebutSingle SentenceWorst Fear
Author:Ralph Lombreglia
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“The Hours is in fact a lovely triumph. Cunningham honors both Mrs. Dalloway and its creator with unerring sensitivity, thanks to his modesty of intention and his sovereignly affecting prose.... With his elliptical evocation of Mrs. Dalloway, he has managed to pay great but quiet tribute -- reminding us of the gorgeous, ferocious beauty of what endures.”

FactsHoursPayHonorQuietIntentionEndureCreatorLovelyThanksTriumphProseModestySensitivityGorgeousTributeRemindingMrs DallowayCunninghams
Author:Gail Caldwell
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“Even in a crowded field, it is a rare pleasure to come across a prose stylist like Kellie Wells, whose intellect and language bid one another beautifully to a dance. She dares to be at play in the most unsettling questions of her day. Surely when the present generation of writers shakes down to its unique and irreplaceable voices, Kellie Wells will be one of them.”

WellsPlayLanguageVoicePleasureGenerationsFieldsUniqueDareIntellectProseShakesCrowdedStylistIrreplaceable
Author:Jaimy Gordon
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“I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use of language. Some of this storytelling reads as if it were spoken rather than written, stuffed with tired images that pop into the writer's head because they are so familiar. The top of the head is fit for growing hair, but not for generating fine prose.”

IfsWritingLongBookStoriesUseLanguageGrowingWrittenHairFineReaderFitConcernTiredPopsFamiliarStorytellingStreamsProseSpoiledPrecisionManuscriptsFreshnessUse Of Language
Author:Sol Stein
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“Poets seem to write more easily about love than prose writers. For a start, they own that flexible ‘I’…. Then again, poets seem able to turn bad love – selfish, shitty love – into good love poetry. Prose writers lack this power of admirable, dishonest transformation. We can only turn bad love into prose about bad love. So we are envious (and slightly distrustful) when poets talk to us of love.”

WritingSeemsAbleTurnsPoetSelf LoveTransformationSelfishProseFlexibleAdmirableLove PoetryEnviousGood LoveBad Love
Author:Julian Barnes
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“Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.”

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Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays
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“Voice is the je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. It separates brochures and brilliance, memo and memoir, a ship's log and The Old Man and the Sea. The best writers stamp prose with their own distinctive personality; their timbre and tone are as recognizable as their voices on the phone. To cultivate voice, you must listen for the music of language-the vernacular, the syntactic tics, the cadences.”

MenWritingLanguageVoiceSeaPersonalityPhonesMemoirShipsToneProseOld ManStampsBrillianceDistinctiveSpiritedCadenceVernacularTicsMemosTimbreBrochures
Book:Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose
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“Krzhizhanovsky wanted to perform imaginary experiments with the nature of time and space. Outside, in the streets, the Communist state was busy performing such experiments for real. In response, Krzhizhanovsky's prose has a recklessly unstable tone in which delighted examination of impossible worlds can slip into ferocious political sarcasm.... It is a method for investigating how much unreality reality can bear.”

WorldRealStatesRealityWantedPoliticalSpaceImpossibleStreetsBearsMethodResponseBusyExperimentsPerformingToneProseSarcasmCommunistSlipsImaginaryTime And SpaceExaminationDelightedUnstableInvestigatingUnreality
Author:Adam Thirlwell
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“An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn't it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose: "Maintain buying reserves until current uncertainties are resolved," etc. Before reaching for that crutch, face up to two unpleasant facts: The future is never clear and you pay a very high price for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.”

KnowsLongMadeTwoFactsFacesValuesBitsWaitingTermPayClearArgumentMarkInvestingCurrentsUncertaintyLong TermProseBuyingReachingEtcInsightfulReservesConsensusBuyersCrutchesHigh PricesQuestion Mark
Author:Warren Buffett
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