Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim. "

Related Quotes:

" I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring. "

" I like every individual editor, designer, marketing and publicity person I deal with, but I don't like what publishers, corporately, are doing to the ecology of the book world. It's damaging, and it should change. "

" The arts are beyond price; they're beyond value. They're of incalculable worth in what it means to be a human being. "

" And before I'd got to the end of the first paragraph, I'd come up slap bang against a fundamental problem that still troubles me today whenever I begin a story, and it's this: where am I telling it from? "

" Adam and Eve are like imaginary numbers, like the square root of minus one... If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it. "

" We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever. "

" I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. "

" That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old. "

" It should be a firmly established part of the curriculum that children should visit theatres and concert halls. "

" Authors are not a special case, deserving of more sympathy than many other groups. We are a particular case of a general degradation of the quality of life, and we are not going to stop pointing it out, because we speak for many other groups as well. "

" Theatre is one of those things that children will love if they're helped to get there to see it. No child will find his or her own way to the theatre. "

" One handy piece of equipment, which I recommend to any writer of fiction, is a set of Myriorama cards. I consult them frequently. "

" The only instrument I play myself is the ukulele. "

" I love all types of music - jazz, great pop music, world music and folk music - but the music I listen to most is piano music from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Russian music in particular. "

" My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing. "

" I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction! "

" Everyone in the book's ecology, starting with the author and including the publisher, the distributor, the booksellers, the libraries, and ending up with the reader, should benefit from a healthy book trade. "

" What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose. "

" Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit. "

" Education and health were always matters of charity. You educated children and you helped the sick because they were good things to do, not because you were going to make money out of them. If you let the money-making principle, the profit-seeking motive, anywhere near education and health, things go bad. "

" The best sort of activity is one that combines mental effort with sensuous delight. That's why I love drawing. "

" My parents tolerated me reading comics because they knew I was also reading 'proper' books, too. "

" Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it. "

" Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature. "

" For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence. "

" Comics are a wonderful form. You can do so much with it. "

" If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day. "

" One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you. "

" Every government secretary of state or minister should jolly well go to the theatre, go to a concert, go to an art gallery, go to a museum, become somehow interested in these things. If they're not interested, they shouldn't be in government, full stop. "

" If a nation allows its literary culture to die, it's a sign that it doesn't fundamentally care. "