Author Notes Quotes

Human beings are the scariest monsters. ~ James Everington

As he journeyed alone toward the monster that is death, we could do nothing to help him, nor the others still alive; all the words of strength on our lips melted away, our love not great enough to bind them to life, and our hope not enough to will them to live. ~ Alfred Nestor

Boys! Are they always this impossible? Do they always say cryptic, indecipherable things? (Note
to self: work with Liz to adapt her boy-to-English translator into a more mobile form - like maybe a
watch or necklace.) ~ Ally Carter

We can be reluctant to recognize how much of our culture was literary, particularly now that so many of the institutional purveyors of literature happily have joined in proclaiming its death. A substantial number of Americans who believe they worship God actually worship three major literary characters: the Yahweh of the J Writer (earliest author of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers), the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, and Allah of the Koran. ~ Harold Bloom

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ~ Anonymous

You have to be very cautious that you're hitting the right beats and making sure it's funny, but at the same time when those notes are serious, you're trying to get your point across and it's not about the comedy. ~ LeToya Luckett

The only thing that will make us remain glued to being the victim is our failure to handle the emotions that we go through and the pain that overcomes us. ~ Stephen Richards

A writer looks at an issue and asks, 'What if this were to occur? Or what if that was thrown into the mix? What would that look like? ~ Venita Ellick

I said, I love you, you arrogant arse." She smiled. "I always have. You're my mate, Owen Breese MacLaren. The distance won't change that. It never has. ~ Elizabeth Morgan

Ciaran broke the silence and spoke quietly. "She means naught to me."

A tear fell down her cheek and she wiped it away. "It doesnae matter--truly," she whispered.

He reached out and gently brushed her arms. When she closed her eyes to avoid his probing gaze, he raised her chin with his finger. "It matters to me," he said solemnly. He wiped her tears with his thumb. "I told her we were done when I returned to Glenorchy. She wasnae pleased. I didnae know she was there, Rosalia. She saw ye and Aisling and threw her body upon me."

She could not help but smirk. "Her verra bare body, my laird."

He paused for a moment, a spark of some identifiable emotion in his eyes. "I didnae notice, Rosalia. All I saw was ye. ~ Victoria Roberts

It's incredible how one song or even one little phrase or just a few notes, if you really concentrate on it, can be a kaleidoscope of possibility. ~ Bill Frisell

His fame is great; and it will, we have no doubt, be lasting; but it is fame of a peculiar kind, and indeed marvellously resembles infamy. We remember no other case in which the world has made so great a distinction between a book and its author. In general, the book and the author are considered as one. To admire the book is to admire the author. The case of Boswell is an exception, we think the only exception, to this rule. ~ Samuel Johnson

Do you want to sit with your boyfriend?" Cooper asked with his gaze on Nick even as his fingers caressed the nape of my neck.
"Maybe, but first I'll copy your stellar notes."
"Bitch."
"Asscrack."
"Nerd."
"Hotstuff."
"The devil disguised as an angel to trick me into losing my heart."
"That one was too long."
Cooper grinned. ~ Bijou Hunter

Later, I started to understand just why these children 'hated' us other children. I understood that they did not, in fact, hate 'us', but hated the fact that we were German and spoke in a language that they associated with pain, fear and the loss of their parents, uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers, their whole families, in fact. Once I understood this it affected me in all sorts of subconscious ways, ways that were to blight my life for many years and make me deny my German birth. ~ Alfred Nestor

Music comes to life inside me. It's no longer just a succession of notes. ~ Maude Julien

When I start on a book, I have been thinking about it and making occasional notes for some time ... So I have lots of theme, locale, subjects and technical ideas ... I don't worry about long periods of not doing anything. I know my subconscious is busy. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

The truth is, forgiving is a rather simple concept to grasp. It is often imagined that when you forgive, you have to reconcile with someone and yet this is a larger team in which forgiveness is just a player. ~ Stephen Richards

As the medieval historian Richard Kieckhefer notes, the people of medieval Europe thought of magic as rational for two reasons: first of all, that it could actually work (that its efficacy was shown by evidence recognized within the culture as authentic) and, secondly, that its workings were governed by principles (of theology or of physics) that could be coherently articulated. ~ Michael Shermer

Antanas eased up on the accelerator and pulled the truck onto the shoulder. The sound of the soldiers' footsteps crunching in the snow made Maria sit up straight. The truck had driven about thirty metres past the patrol, but none of the soldiers had fired upon them. Antanas hoped fervently that the transport documents that Peter had furnished him would pass inspection. Maria reached down and touched a metal pipe concealed beneath her seat. She was prepared to use it.

Jadwyga continued to pray quietly. "Mother Mary, spare me, Maria, and the other women from rape, and Antanas from death."

As a sergeant approached the truck, Jadwyga's stomach cramped, sweat broke out on her forehead, and her arms began to shake. Then she fainted. Maria propped Jadwyga up to make it look as though she was sleeping, and then smiled at the sergeant who was rapping on the glass.

Antanas rolled down his window. ~ Mark Creedon

Now I can broadcast to an audience of several million people on the 'Today' programme. I can talk about the day's news. But on radio, believe it or not, we have notes and scripts. And while we might ad lib the odd wryly amusing asides, they come at the frequency of a suburban bus. About one every 90 minutes. ~ Evan Davis

Creative writing is your ability to develop your inner tension, your libido, your supply of energy and electric charge, turning the charge into an image or thought, and wording the thought, thus contributing all the activity of your mind to the immortal culture of humankind and subsequently to your own immortality. ~ Lara Biyuts

What's important is the time we spent working on it together. What's important is that Sam is the kind of guy who will trade notes on a sketchpad and teach me how to make tuna melts and drop everything to drive to a parking lot
when I need him and throw stones at my window to make sure I'm okay. ~ Hannah Harrington

Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade- all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design. ~ Okakura Kakuzo

I remember being little and wondering if I smoothed this line away would I be able to see inside you, like it was a door or some kind of opening to your insides. Dumb, huh?"
"Sweet," he said, softly. "Little girl sweet. Never dumb."
Her eyes traveled up to his and locked there.
"When I got older I wondered what it would be like to kiss it. ~ Peggy Jaeger

When we study Shakespeare on the page, for academic purposes, we may require all kinds of help. Generally, we read him in modern spelling and with modern punctuation, and with notes. But any poetry that is performed - from song lyric to tragic speech - must make its point, as it were, without reference back. ~ James Fenton

Shelling, many felt, was actually worse than bombing, since bombardments were not preceded by an alarm. From 4 September to the end of the year the Wehrmacht's heavy artillery pounded Leningrad 272 times, for up to eighteen hours at a stretch, with a total of over 13,000 shells. ( ... ) The rumour that some shells were filled only with granulated sugar, or held supportive notes from sympathetic German workers, was a soothing invention. ~ Anna Reid

My favorite book, by a wide margin, was An Imperial Affliction, but I didn't like to tell people about it. Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you withthis weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read thebook. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.It wasn't even that the book was so good or anything; it was just that the author, Peter Van Houten, seemed to understand me in weird and impossible ways. An Imperial Affliction was my book, in the way my body was my body and my thoughts were my thoughts. ~ John Green

There was a rough stone age and a smooth stone age and a bronze age, and many years afterward a cut-glass age. In the cut-glass age, when young ladies had persuaded young
men with long, curly mustaches to marry them, they sat down several months afterward and wrote thank-you notes for all sorts of cut-glass presents - punch-bowls, finger-bowls, dinner-glasses, wine-glasses, ice-cream dishes, bonbon dishes, decanters, and vases - for, though cut glass was nothing new in the nineties, it was then especially busy reflecting the dazzling light of fashion from the Back Bay to the fastnesses of the Middle West."
--from "The Glass-Cut Bowl" by F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ Diana Secker Tesdell

For an author, writing is not a want, it is a need. It might as well be the second level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; right after food, water, and shelter. ~ Janelle Allum

Every dreamer is the author of their destiny, do not underestimate your dreams. It's your inner child screaming what you should do. Free it. ~ Alan Maiccon

Do try The House by fresh new author, Susannah Mansfield, it's funny, sad and very different, you'll love the characters and the stories. ~ Susannah Mansfield

Many critics always saw and heard that my style comes from Roy Eldridge, which is true. But for many things, not only how to play the trumpet but the way to choose the notes, how to play them and how to phrase all of them, I took that from Sweets [Edison]. He really brought something new to the trumpet. ~ Dizzy Gillespie

The way you scale that is you create notes for every meeting and send it to the entire company. ~ Keith Rabois

In the meantime, without realising it, I had learned a valuable lesson - in the need for an author to have a total belief in their characters if they are to come alive! ~ Robin Rowles

The Creed for the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive (Peter's Laws)


1. If anything can go wrong, Fix it!!! (To hell with Murphy!!)
2. When given a choice - Take Both!!
3. Multiple projects lead to multiple successes.
4. Start at the top, then work your way up.
5. Do it by the book... but be the author!
6. When forced to compromise, ask for more.
7. If you can't beat them, join them, then beat them.
8. If it's worth doing, it's got to be done right now.
9. If you can't win, change the rules.
10. If you can't change the rules, then ignore them.
11. Perfection is not optional.
12. When faced without a challenge, make one.
13. "No" simply means begin again at one level higher.
14. Don't walk when you can run.
15. Bureaucracy is a challenge to be conquered with a righteous attitude, a tolerance for stupidity, and a bulldozer when necessary.
16. When in doubt: THINK!
17. Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.
18. The squeaky wheel gets replaced.
19. The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live.
20. The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!! ~ Peter Safar

I found him between a reality and a nightmare. ~ Shannon A. Thompson

I revise my suicide plan to slow death by morphling. I will become a yellow-skinned bag of bones, with enormous eyes. I'm a couple of days into the plan, making good progress, when something unexpected happens. I begin to sing. At the window, in the shower, in my sleep. Hour after hour of ballads, love songs, mountain airs. All the songs my father taught me before he died, for certainly there has been very little music in my life since. What's amazing is how clearly I remember them. The tunes, the lyrics. My voice, at first rough and breaking on the high notes, warms up into something splendid. A voice that would make the mockingjays fall silent and then tumble over themselves to join in. Days pass, weeks. I watch the snows fall on the ledge outside my window. And in all that time, mine is the only voice I hear. What ~ Suzanne Collins

Seek to make life henceforth a consecrated thing; that so, when the sunset is nearing, with its murky vapors and lowering skies, the very clouds of sorrow may be fringed with golden light. Thus will the song in the house of your pilgrimage be always the truest harmony. It will be composed of no jarring, discordant notes; but with all its varied tones will form one sustained, life-long melody; dropped for a moment in death, only to be resumed with the angels, and blended with the everlasting cadences of your Father's house. ~ John Ross Macduff

The author observers that better technology actually increased division because rival outlets funded by rival parties could get their slant to the partisans ~ Harold Holzer

The only happy author in this world is he who is below the care of reputation. ~ Washington Irving

I have learned that the ambition of those who follow selfish precepts is no more than a chaotic waste, a finite gain that must be followed by infinite loss. For there is indeed a harmony in the universe, a concordant singing of common weal. To join that song, one must find inner harmony, must find the notes that ring true. There is one other point to be made about that truth: Evil creatures cannot sing. ~ R.A. Salvatore

I do not steal imagination. I use it and replace it by making people read. ~ S.A. Tawks

Quit Believing in Lies and Always Search For the Truth! ~ Charleston Parker