Best Prose Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 22

“Prose should have a flow, the forward momentum of a certain energized weight; it should feel like a voice tumbling in your ear.”

Feels Should Writing Certain Voice Flow Should Have Ears Weight Prose Momentum Tumbling Forward Momentum

Author:John Updike

“Every country in the world loved the folklore of the West--the music, the dress, the excitement, everything that was associated with the opening of a new territory. It took everybody out of their own little world. The cowboy lasted a hundred years, created more songs and prose and poetry than any other folk figure. The closest thing was the Japanese samurai. Now, I wonder who'll continue it.”

Source: The Quotable John Wayne: The Grit and Wisdom of an American Icon

“My preference is for prose with more silence in it, language that contains more pockets of strangeness.”

Language Silence Prose Pockets Preference Strangeness

Author:Anthony Doerr

“Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat raggedly on into the future.”

Ifs Stories Beats Affair Prose Truthful Pauses Sorting Winding Up Sorting Out

Author:Simon Schama

“To write rhythmic prose one must go deep into oneself and find the anonymous and multiple rhythm of the blood. Prose needs to be built like a cathedral. There, one is truly without a name, without ambition, without help; on scaffoldings, alone with one's consciousness.”

Needs Writing Helping Names Consciousness Blood Ambition Built Oneself Rhythm Prose Multiple Cathedrals Scaffolding

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“Atticus Lish is a true original and this is a tremendous book, relentless, moving, written in prose of marvelous integrity. Now that America and the novel are dead, I hope we can have more great American novels as alive as this one.”

Book America Moving Novel Alive Written Integrity Originals Prose Marvelous Relentless Great American

Author:Sam Lipsyte

“A page of good prose remains invincible.”

Pages Remains Prose Invincible

Author:John Cheever

“I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language - always the language - was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.”

Language Magic Keys Prose Amusing Frivolous

Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume

Source: Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume

“What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if it’s thrown into the fire the next minute, I am so much further on.”

Ifs Want Feels Writing Wells Long Real Matter Age Next Views Effort Practice Fire Minutes Pages What You Want Prose Thrown Verses

Author:C. S. Lewis

“Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.”

Faces Written Prose Face To Face

Book:The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

Source: The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“Prose proposes, verse reverses.”

Prose Verses Reverse Propose

Author:Richard Howard

“Merrie Destefano storms the world of urban fantasy with AFTERLIFE, breathing new life into the vast genre of the undead. Gritty, poignant, in the tradition of Bladerunner, with the nostalgia of New Orleans. With crisp and beautiful prose, AFTERLIFE blurs the line between the living and the dead to ask life's ultimate questions-even if they take nine lives to solve.”

“In his scintillating new novel, Matt Bondurant explores a crucial period in the history of Virginia and of his family. His gorgeous, precise prose brings to life an amazing cast of characters, including Sherwood Anderson, and the often deadly battles of Prohibition. The Wettest County in the World is a remarkably compelling, highly intelligent, and deeply moving novel.”

World Character Moving Novel Periods Battle Intelligent Including Casts Prose Crucial Compelling Precise Gorgeous County Virginia Prohibition Highly Intelligent

Author:Margot Livesey

“Kaethe Schwehn's poignant memoir explores longing, both spiritual and physical, community and faith, in prose that is calm, lovely, and filled with clear-eyed honesty and grace. Tailings is simply an exquisite book.”

Book Spiritual Community Clear Grace Honesty Filled Longing Calm Lovely Memoir Prose Exquisite Poignant

Author:Dinty W. Moore

“My Family and Other Saints echoes Gerald Durrell's classic memoir, My Family and Other Animals, not only in its title, but in its wonderful humor and lyrical prose. Like Durrell, Kirin Narayan takes the reader to a fascinating world far from our own, and brings to life its myriad sights, sounds and smells, while revealing the profound cultural beliefs of its people. India is just the most complex character among a cast of characters-family members, gurus, hippies, and neighbors-all of whom I now count as old friends.”

“Self-publishing in comics is core to the whole artform. There is no scarlet letter in comics as there still is, to some degree, in prose. As no publisher for a long time would publish serious work in comics, the only way a lot of it came out was because of self-publishing. Many of the greatest works of the medium are self-published.”

Way Long Stills Self Whole Serious Degrees Long Time Letters Core Mediums Prose Publishing Comic Book Publishers Publish Scarlet Serious Work

Author:Kieron Gillen

“With impeccable prose, dry wit, and uncommon wisdom, Ted Thompson brings to life one family's painful disappointments and powerful resilience. The Land of Steady Habits combines Austen's shrewd mastery of domestic economics with Updike's compassion for the melancholy commuter to make something elegant, fresh, and brilliant.”

Powerful Compassion Land Habit Economics Painful Disappointment Resilience Brilliant Wit Dry Prose Melancholy Steady Mastery Elegant Uncommon Austen Impeccable

Author:Maggie Shipstead

“Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.”

Writing Littles Bits Tired Confused Prose Annoyed Good Writing Timidity

Author:William Zinsser

“It has often been observed that the repercussion of poetic language on prose language can be considered a decisive cut of a whip.”

Language Cutting Prose Poetic Whips Repercussions

Author:Eugenio Montale

“When critics are waiting to pounce upon poetic style on exactly the same grounds as if it were prose, the poets tremble.”

Ifs Waiting Style Poet Critics Prose Poetic Ransom

Author:John Crowe Ransom

“I would never write realistic prose. I don't like people who try to write in a poetic style, but in the course of their book abandon it for realism, and weave back and forth like drunkards between the surreal and the real.”

People Writing Trying Book Real Courses Style Prose Abandon Poetic Realistic Realism Surreal Back And Forth Drunkards

Author:Marguerite Young

“"I'm sorry I'm young," Deborah answered with a bitterness that was half prose. "We have a right to be as crazy as anyone else"”

Young Half Crazy Mental Health Sorry Prose Bitterness I'm Sorry

Author:Joanne Greenberg

“Poetry must be as well written as prose.”

Wells Poetry Written Prose Well Written

Author:Ezra Pound

“The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.”

Felt Lines Periods Musical Scripture Prose

Author:William Shenstone

“All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.”

Book Courses Literature Sides Behinds Mets Affection Enjoyed Prose Fishing Miscellaneous

Author:Norman MacCaig

“I can see that "reap" and "deep," "prayers" and "bears," . . . do rhyme, and so I suppose it is a splendid effort, but if you had written it in plain prose, I could have understood it a great deal better and read it a great deal more easily.”

Ifs I Can Understanding Prayer Deals Effort Written Bears Understood Prose Rhyme Splendid Reap

Author:Susan B. Anthony

“Unlike prose writing, the strange process of writing with pictures encourages associations and recollections to accumulate literally in front of your eyes; people, places, and events appear out of nowhere. Doors open into rooms remembered from childhood, faces form into dead relatives, and distant loves appear, almost magically, on the page- all deceptively manageable, visceral, the combinations sometimes even revelatory.”

People Love Writing Sometimes Eye Age Faces Form Process Rooms Doors Childhood Fronts Events Strange Pages Combination Remembered Prose Association Recollection Visceral Manageable Prose Writing

Author:Chris Ware

“He can develop sense and style, in the manner of distinguished modern prose, in which event he may be sure that the result will not fall into any objective form.”

May Form Fall Results Modern Style Events Objectives Prose Distinguished Objectivity

Author:John Crowe Ransom

“She's always looking for poetry and passion and sensitivity, the whole Romantic kitchen. I live on a rather simpler diet.' 'Prose and pudding?''I don't expect attractive men necessarily to have attractive souls.”

Men Soul Whole Passion Attractive Diets Kitchen Prose Sensitivity Pudding Attractive Man

Book:The Magus

Source: The Magus

“Prose is in fact the museum where the dead images of verse are preserved. In 'Notes', prose is 'a museum where all the old weapons of poetry kept.”

Inspiration Weapons Prose Museums

Author:T. E. Hulme

“Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.”

Acting Prose Poetry Is Realistic

Book:Kazan on Directing

Source: Kazan on Directing

“It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose.”

Values Complicated Prose Immensity Lyric Poetry

Book:My sister, life and other poems

Source: My sister, life and other poems

“The object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object, Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose.”

Heart Certain Passion Objects Satisfaction Intellect Excitement Prose

Book:Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works

Source: Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works

“Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose.”

Example Technique Acquire Prose Engineering Reverse Savoring Reverse Engineering

Book:The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

Source: The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

“I find old copies of National Gallery catalogues, which are written in the dryest possible prose, infinitely soothing.”

Written Prose Copies Gallery Soothing Catalogues

Author:Howard Hodgkin

“Mother Dolores Hart's prose is a reflection of the inner beauty she has always possessed. A fascinating read... and read again!”

Mother Reflection Prose Fascinating Possessed Inner Beauty Hart

Author:Robert Evans

“The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.”

Poetry Century Prose

Author:David Hare

“Hugely enjoyable and insightfulGosling has produced the perfect combination of rigorous research and lightness of prose to create a book that will transform every reader into a super snooper.”

Book Perfect Reader Research Combination Prose Enjoyable Lightness Perfect Combination

Author:Richard Wiseman

“Habit is the best thing for you if you’re trying to write prose.”

Ifs Writing Trying Habit Best Things Prose

Author:Alan Cheuse

“Karl Popper once advised a student that if he wanted to reap intellectual fame, he should write endless pages of obscure, high-flown prose that would leave the reader puzzled and cowed. He should then here and there smuggle in a few sensible, straightforward sentences all could understand. The reader would feel that since he has grasped this part, he must have also grasped the rest. He would then congratulate himself and praise the author.”

Ifs Feels Should Writing Wanted Students Reader Fame Pages Intellectual Praise Sentences Endless Prose Sensible Obscure Here And There Straightforward Reap Puzzled

Author:Anthony de Jasay

“Even at the worst of times, when nothing goes right, when the prose is clumsy and the ideas feel stale, at least we're doing something that we genuinely love. There's no other reason to work this hard, except that love.”

Feels Ideas Hard Reason Worst Prose Stale Clumsy

Book:Conceiving the Heavens: Creating the Science Fiction Novel

Source: Conceiving the Heavens: Creating the Science Fiction Novel

“The gap between verse and poetry is enormous. Between good poetry and good prose the gap is much narrower”

Enormous Prose Poetry Is Gaps Verses Good Poetry

Author:Michael Longley

“If it doesn't work horizontally as prose... it probably won't work any better vertically pretending to be poetry.”

Ifs Poetry Prose Pretending

Author:Robert Breault

“My prose style at this time was a stomach-twisting blend of the Bible, Carl Sandburg, H.L. Mencken, Jeffrey Farnol, Christopher Morley, Samuel Pepys, and Franklin Pierce Adams imitating Samuel Pepys. I was quite apt to throw in a "bless the mark" at any spot, and to begin a sentence with "Lord" comma.”

Writing Lord Style Mark Sentences Spots Prose Bless Stomach Franklin Pierce Imitating

Author:E. B. White

“I'm a failed poet. Reading poetry helps me to see the world differently, and I try to infuse my prose with figurative language, which goes against the trend in fiction.”

World Trying Helping Reading Language Fiction Poet Prose Help Me Trends Reading Poetry

Author:Jesmyn Ward

“Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country is his saying,-imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics,-"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land; to the English that of the sea; to the Germans that of-the air!" Richter: German humorist & prose writer.”

Thinking Littles Country Names Given Known Air Sea Land Critics Connected Newspapers Germany Prose Empires Providence Humorists

Book:Works

Source: Works

“The flesh of prose gets its shape and strength from the bones of grammar.”

Shapes Bones Flesh Prose Grammar

Book:Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose

Source: Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose

“My heavens! I've been talking prose for the last forty years without knowing it.”

Years Lasts Heaven Talking Knowing Speech Prose Forty

Author:Moliere

“Everything that's prose isn't verse and everything that isn't verse is prose. Now you see what it is to be a scholar!”

Prose Scholar Verses Scholarship

Author:Moliere

“Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is so valued that the letters forming it are seen as objects of solemn beauty.”

Writing Eye Form Objects Demand Pages Letters Occasions Prose Site Solemn Informative Inscriptions

Author:James Fenton

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