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I know it's been used to death, and I can't cite the source, but this:
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
Edit: I figured I'd better dig up the source, but apparently nobody can agree one. W. C. Fields, Dorothy Parker, Steve Allen, Fred Allen, etc have all used it.
[This message has been edited by Natej11 (edited July 22, 2009).]
quote:"All good novelists have bad memories."--Graham Green
Maybe it means that good novelists aren't married to "what really happened" but are able to allow themselves to adjust what they "remember" so that it makes a better story.
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"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time." -George Bernard Shaw
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"Moths are attracted to the flame of personality. So are vampires. Artists should take note and beware."--Lawrence Durrell, one of the Alexandria Tetralogy.
(If an in-universe writer said it, does it count?)
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I've posted THAT Groucho Marx quote a few times. Another good Groucho one is:
"Either this man's dead, or my watch has stopped."
One of my all-time favorites is the "code of honor" David Gemmell gave to all of his warriors:
"Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil. Never back away from an enemy. Either fight or surrender. It is not enough to say I will not be evil. Evil must be fought wherever it is found."
And, as I've posted before:
"Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance." - Plato
"Plato was a bore." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal." - Leo Tolstoy
"I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy." - Ernest Hemingway
"Hemingway was a jerk." - Harold Robbins
(Cracks me up every time.)
Politicians and diapers both need to be changed, and for the same reason! - Anonymous
"Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment and be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes." - Alexander Dumas, in The Count of Monte Cristo.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert A. Heinlein <--This seems a brilliant piece of advice on characterization.
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Goldwyn is also supposed to have said, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union." (Or somesuch--anyway, it applies to any kind of storytelling.)
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I heard that someone tried that Monkeys-on-typwriter bit, trying for the plays of W. Shakespeare, but all they got was the collected works of Francis Bacon. - Bill Hirst.
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From some rock trivia book whose title escapes me: "The more radical a cause, the more likely a celebrity is devoted to it. Do you know anybody who's for world hunger?"
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