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Prose Quotes

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Prose Quotes

“Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn't enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of terrain, speed and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close, linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways.”

WayWantWritingWellsLongSometimesEnoughHelpingFilmMovingAbilityNovelJourneyStudentsFineReaderPagesSpeedMoodProsePaceCrucialCinematicTerrainLong Journey
Author:Rose Tremain
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“The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject is nothing less than the diagnosis and cure of the human malady. We follow twelve generations of New York City's Steenwycks family through their forays into phrenology, mesmerism, radium therapy and similar misadventures, a historically rich narrative that Menger-Anderson delivers in striking, elegant prose and with a sure eye for detail. This is a remarkable debut by a writer to watch.”

HumansStoriesEyeCitiesBrainWatchesRichWonderfulGenerationsSubjectsNew YorkStrangeDoctorsDetailsCuresNarrativeTherapyProseRemarkableNew York CityTwelveIntroducingGiftedElegantVansDiagnosisDebutMaladyOlafMisadventurePhrenologyEye For Detail
Author:Ben Fountain
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“Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.”

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Book:The Long Weekend : a Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939: And, The Reader Over Your Shoulder : a Handbook for Writers of English Prose
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“All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of mankind.”

PeopleHomeSpeakVoiceStreetsMankindPaintingGratitudeCourtRaisedProseHallsFarmsStillnessCafesSpeaking OutGreat Voice
Book:The Quotable Robert F. Kennedy
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“French is not a language that lends itself naturally to the opaque and ponderous idiom of nature-philosophy, and Teilhard has according resorted to the use of that tipsy, euphoristic prose-poetry which is one of the more tiresome manifestations of the French spirit.”

PhilosophyUseSpiritLanguageManifestationProseTiresomeIdiomOpaqueProse PoetryTipsy
Book:The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science
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“Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning”

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Author:Michael Swanwick
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“Futurists are already predicting the day mankind builds its replacement, Artificial Intelligence. Daniel Wilson shows what might happen when that computer realizes its creators are no longer needed. Lean prose, great characters, and almost unbearable tension ensure that Robopocalypse is going to be a blockbuster. Once started I defy anyone to put it down.”

CharacterShowsMightHappensRealizingMankindNeededComputerCreatorTensionProseArtificial IntelligenceArtificialUnbearableWilsonReplacementsPredictingGreat CharacterBlockbusterFuturist
Author:Jack Du Brul
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“Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how. No mother is all good or all bad, all laughing or all serious, all loving or all angry. Ambivalence rushes through their veins.”

KnowsWayYearsHas BeensPlayHandsMotherLaughingKnow HowVirtueSeriousAngryBest WayCardsProseStereotypeVeinsGreetingsNamelessAmbivalenceFacelessGreeting Card
Author:Erma Bombeck
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“I've never been able to write poetry without having vast tracts of dead time. Poetry requires a certain kind of disciplined indolence that the world, including many prose writers, doesn't recognize as discipline. It is, though. It's the discipline to endure hours that you refuse to fill with anything but the possibility of poetry, though you may in fact not be able to write a word of it just then, and though it may be playing practical havoc with your life. It's the discipline of preparedness.”

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Author:Christian Wiman
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“There should be two main objectives in ordinary prose writing: to convey a message and to include in it nothing that will distract the reader's attention or check his habitual pace of reading - he should feel that he is seated at ease in a taxi, not riding a temperamental horse through traffic.”

FeelsShouldWritingTwoReadingAttentionReaderMessagesOrdinaryHorseChecksObjectivesEaseProsePaceRidingTrafficTaxiHabitualProse Writing
Book:The Long Weekend : a Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939: And, The Reader Over Your Shoulder : a Handbook for Writers of English Prose
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“How often might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse in prose? And may not a little book be as easily made by chance as this great volume of the world?”

MenWorldMayLittlesMadeBookMightFallChanceEducationLettersMathematicsMathMathematicalProseBagsVolumeDiscourseFlingGreat Math
Book:The works of the most reverend Dr. John Tillotson, late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: containing fifty four sermons and discourses on several occasions. Together with The Rule of Faith. Being all that were published by His Grace himself and now collected into one volume, to which is added an alphabetical table of the principle matter
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“With a profound first-hand knowledge of participants, encompassing linguistic competence, and engaging prose, Padraic Kenney recreates the simultaneously serious and playful currents of East Europe's overthrow of repressive state socialism. What an invaluable guide to the elusive exhilaration that motivated the actors and captivated all of us who followed the transformation with such hope! We can appreciate neither the ebullience of 1989 nor the disappointment with the quotidian reality that followed without understanding Kenney's 'carnival.'”

FirstsStatesHandsRealityActorsUnderstandingSeriousEuropeAppreciateTransformationProfoundCurrentsDisappointmentEastGuidesSocialismProseMotivatedEngagingCompetenceElusiveParticipantsInvaluableExhilarationCarnivalsCaptivated
Author:Charles S. Maier
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“The Ploughmen is as good a book as I’ve read in years. Kim Zupan’s language is as rich as Cormac McCarthy’s, and like Cormac’s, it comes from ground-zero of the heart. I’m also reminded of James Lee Burke’s sure-footed prose and delight in metaphor. Luminous...nothing short of brilliant...a firstnovel that leaves me impatient for the next.”

YearsHeartBookNextLanguageRichMetaphorDelightBrilliantProseZeroLeaving MeImpatientLuminousKimGround Zero
Author:Rick DeMarinis
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