Beautifully Written Quotes

Has it ever happened, you've seen a striking film, beautifully written and acted and photographed, that you walk out of the theater glad to be a human being and you say to yourself I hope they make a lot of money from that? I hope the actors, I hope the director earns a million dollars for what they've done, what they've given me tonight? And you go back and see the movie again and you're happy to be a tiny part of the system that is rewarding those people with every ticket ... the actors I see on the screen, they'll get twenty cents of this very dollar I'm paying now; they'll be able to buy an ice cream cone any flavor they want from their share of my ticket alone. Glorious moments in art in books and films and dance, they're delicious because we see ourselves in glory's mirror. ~ Richard Bach

Elisabeth Sheffield's new novel is multilayered, smart, beautifully written, and funny. I was taken in by the first paragraph and held firmly through the roller coaster of a ride. The depth of the novel was evidenced by the constantly shifting meaning of the title itself. In fact, the entire work never changes its meaning, but somehow, seamlessly, simply means more. This is a rare and memorable piece of work. ~ Percival Everett

My favorite genre is Beautifully Written Books of Any Genre. Could we make that a genre? ~ Kristin Cashore

With 'True Grit,' the language was very specific, as is Shakespeare. You couldn't really improvise, nor would you really ever have to. I never felt the need to. It was all so beautifully written, and it was all right there. ~ Hailee Steinfeld

'The Last Ship,' which is a beautifully written piece, is about a love triangle and young men working in a shipyard. Audiences may prefer to see a show that allows them to forget about their worries for an evening. ~ Rachel Tucker

The Snow Leopard's Tale is a mystical pilgrimage into that wild country where animal passion and the human heart begin to walk the very same trail. Whether one has been in the business of adventuring, as Thomas McIntyre has, or has enjoyed such adventures from the safety of one's armchair, The Snow Leopard's Tale is a haunting, beautifully written, and thought-provoking tale, as all great parables are. ~ Ted Kerasote

Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read. ~ Annie Dillard

Broken Horses is an artistic triumph. Beautifully written, acted and imaged, this film wraps slowly around you like a king snake and squeezes, ~ James Cameron

Every once in awhile you find a novel so magical that there is no escaping its spell. The Night Circus is one of these rarities - engrossing, beautifully written and utterly enchanting. If you choose to read just one novel this year, this is it ~ Danielle Trussoni

My favourite books series as a young child was the Frank L. Baum 'Wizard of Oz' series. They were beautifully written, oversized fat books with wonderful type and illustrations. ~ Anita Shreve

For me, the goal is always to write a novel that I myself would like to read. People frequently ask me what my favorite book is, and in effect, there's always a capital-F Favorite, capital-B Book that I would like to write myself someday. I try to go for that ideal of writing the best, most entertaining, most beautifully written book that I possibly can. ~ Michael Chabon

Floyd Skloot's Revertigo is a beautifully-written, moving account of one man's off kilter life. Who would have imaged a memoir exploring months of extreme vertigo and decades of neurological turbulence would be filled with so much joy and optimism? This gentle, wise, and perceptive memoir never fails to surprise. ~ Dinty W. Moore

Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Tigana' is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best fantasy novel ever written. It's beautifully written, the characters are unforgettable, the worldbuilding is exquisite. ~ David B. Coe

The Charge will change your life. Our brains are hard wired to meet specific human drives, and learning to harness and activate those drives is the secret to success and happiness. This is a smart and beautifully written book, and it will electrify your life. Get this book! ~ Daniel Amen

The first thing I read was of my character on the phone talking to Sydney's fiance. Though short, it was so beautifully written, and it made me laugh. I thought if I wanted to play a character, this would be it. ~ Victor Garber

The Voice of the River is a beautifully written, deeply inclusive and profoundly spirtual work of art. I am moved by its great genorosity above all, and its wisdom. It is a gift like no other. ~ Carole Maso

The Light in the Labyrinth is a beautifully written book, a gem. I savoured every word; words written with so much 'colour'. Even though I know the story of Queen Anne Boleyn, Dunn's perspective on her last days is missing in so many other books of the genre. Dunn gives grace to the history and an honest, and very compassionate look at Anne's last days. I cried in the end, shedding tears for the young Kate, Anne and her little Bess. I have not yet read a Tudor book that has moved me to tears, as this wonderful journey does. Dunn's dedication and research shines through in this unforgettable book, a book not just for young readers, but also for all." - Lara Salzano, avid Tudor reader. ~ Wendy J. Dunn

While the storytelling in games is getting so much better, you look at something like Grand Theft Auto V, which I thought was really beautifully written, it doesn't really need a movie because it is a movie. So I think you need a unique game - you either need an incredibly talented writer and director to come in and put together an amazing vision, or you need a game like Metal Gear, which is very cinematic, has a huge amount of history behind it, but whose cinematic experience is very different from what you'd get in a theater. ~ David Hayter

A scientist with a poet's command of language, Cristina Eisenberg writes with precision and passion ... takes her reader on a breathtaking, sometimes heartbreaking tour of the planet from the Gulf of Maine to the Amazonian rain forests, the tropical coral reefs to old growth forests of the Northwest as well as rivers, lakes, and wetlands. I found the wealth of information not only accessible but riveting ... Eisenberg's powerful, beautifully written book ... has the potential to open many people's eyes, minds, and hearts. ~ Elizabeth Cunningham

Cormoran Strike is an amazing creation and I can't wait for his next outing. Strike is so instantly compelling that it's hard to believe this is a debut novel. I hope there are plenty more Cormoran Strike adventures to come. A beautifully written debut novel introducing one of the most unique and compelling detectives I've come across in years. ~ Mark Billingham

Many fantasy novels - 'Lord of the Rings', for instance, or 'Lavondyss' by Robert Holdstock - are beautifully written. Geoff Ryman's 'The Child Garden' is exquisite and utterly beguiling. Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy is an astonishing piece of multi-faceted storytelling. So quality of writing does not condemn the genre. ~ David Gemmell

Vividly imagined, beautifully written, at times almost unbearably suspenseful-the stories in Kristiana Kahakauwila's debut collection, This Is Paradise, are boldly inventive in their exploration of the tenuous nature of human relations. These are poignant stories of 'paradise'-Hawai'i-with all that 'paradise' entails of the transience of sensuous beauty. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Michael Koryta is that rare author who is at once a compelling story teller and a fantastic writer. From the first sentence of THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD, you'll be under his spell. His characters are living, breathing people you'll care about; his setting is a place you'll visit and stay-long after you've decided to leave because you're scared. You can't leave; you're trapped. There are too many nerve-jangling, beautifully written, razor sharp moments and you won't want to miss a single one. This is an absolute sizzler. ~ Lisa Unger

A beautifully written tale that lives somewhere between landscape and memory,
where regret becomes a prison, and a story told often enough becomes truth. ~ Brunonia Barry

George Kennan and Paul Nitze were the Adams and Jefferson of the Cold War. They were there for the beginning, they witnessed its course over almost half a century, and they argued with each other constantly while it was going on. But they maintained throughout a remarkable friendship, demonstrating-as few others in our time have-that it is possible to differ with civility. Nicholas Thompson's is a fine account of that relationship, carefully researched, beautifully written, and evocatively suggestive of how much we have lost because such civility has become so rare. ~ John Lewis Gaddis

What I think of blogs is just this: Some are beautifully written and many are not. But even blogs that aren't necessarily "well" written are great for the person writing them. ~ Augusten Burroughs

Finally and essentially: I not only never could have, but never would have, written this book without the conversations with - and the kindness, grace, empathy, forgiveness, and wisdom of - Jared Hohlt, my first and favorite reader, secret keeper, and North Star. His beloved friendship is the greatest gift of my adulthood. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

'The Dark Knight,' for me, has the same problem that every other 'Batman' movie has. It's not about Batman. I think Heath Ledger is just phenomenal and the character of the Joker is beautifully written. He has a particular philosophy that he carries throughout the movie. He has one of the best bad guy schemes. ~ Joss Whedon

William Trevor is an author I admire; his stories are subtle and powerful, and beautifully written. ~ Kim Edwards

Even the most beautifully written, perfectly edited and well-designed books will fail if people aren't made aware of them!" ––Linda Radke, President of Five Star Publications, on the importance of public relations and marketing. ~ Linda F. Radke

Exhaustively researched and beautifully written, Cronkite is a classic. Douglas Brinkley has written his best book yet. This is a fascinating story that will be read for years to come. ~ Debby Applegate

That's how, on the second-to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate-factory roof in 1950 ending up sitting in a row at ten o'clock on a spring morning, drinking Black Label beer supplied by the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank Prison. That beer was piss-warm, but it was still the best I ever had in my life. We sat and drank it and felt the sun on our shoulders, and not even the expression of half-amusement, half-contempt on Hadley's face - as if he was watching apes drink beer instead of men - could spoil it. It lasted twenty minutes, that beer-break, and for those twenty minutes we felt like free men. We could have been drinking beer and tarring the roof of one of our own houses. ~ Stephen King

It's a very obsessive profession that you need to stay obsessed to get anywhere, and it's very easy for us to get obsessed and then nothing else matters. I was reading Somerset Maugham's novella, Moon and Sixpense, about this artist based on Gauguin's life. It was so beautifully written. You must be first rate because second rate you might not survive. If you're an accountant, you'll survive second rate. If you chance it big, you may not get anywhere. ~ Joan Chen

I'd like to think I'm not quite so pretentious as to think my characters go off and live their lives once I've written the final page and switched the computer off. ~ Jane Green

-to judge us all through the machine of the Commandant's monstrous fictions! As though they were the truth! As though history & the written word were friends, rather than adversaries! ~ Richard Flanagan

When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. . . . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it's much more meaningful. . . . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other ~ Ann Druyan

THE WRITER can get free of his writing only by using it, that is, by reading oneself. As if the aim of writing were to use what is already written as a launching pad for reading the writing to come. Moreover, what he has written is read in the process, hence constantly modified by his reading. The book is an unbearable totality. I write against a background of facets. ~ Edmond Jabes

As a grandson of farmers in downstate Illinois, I have long admired the dedication of farmers to their work and have written about the role of agriculture in American innovation. ~ Edmund Phelps

The Genesis Of Butterflies

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies ~ Victor Hugo

I received rejection letters for ten years (one on a napkin, written in crayon.) I had all my rejection notices stored in a box. When the box was finally full I took it to the curb and set it on fire. The next day I went out and got a temp job. ~ Janet Evanovich

And in case you were wondering, right now I'm letting every one of them know where I'll be inside of the hour. Pumping between these beautifully spread legs. Servicing this body of yours with mine. Fucking ~ Anonymous

Aunt Zelda had written her note on special paper that she had made from pressed cabbage leaves. ~ Angie Sage

This world of ours has been constructed like a superbly written novel: we pursue the tale with avidity, hoping to discover the plot. ~ Arthur Keith

The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write. ~ Michel De Montaigne

I entered a poem in a poetry contest around 1987, and the poem won and I received $1,000 for it. That made me realize that maybe what I was writing was worth reading to people. After that, for some reason, I turned to novels and I've written mainly novels ever since. ~ Sharon Creech

Our identity is fictional, written by parents, relatives, education, society. ~ Genesis P-Orridge

Many legends were made, stories written, monuments built - all witnessing the efforts of men to secure the successful voyage of their souls into the world of eternal dreams. ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

This scene came from the writing I did with Bill in New York, working out of an office in the Director's Guild building. I generally came in early and worked for a couple of hours before Bill arrived. He would then spend about an hour puttering around the office and smoking cheroots, then would eventually settle in next to me at the desk, read what I had written, and begin offering suggestions and improvements. Sometimes I would print out a scene and then mark it up - as with the scene above - as Bill tried out Phil's dialogue, and we tweaked lines accordingly. Our afternoons were often spent walking around New York running Bill's errands while talking about general script issues. He was a warm and wonderful host to me during my New York visit. There was an afternoon where he and Tom Davis paired up against me and Dan Aykroyd in a spontaneous basketball game, the four of us sneakerless and slipping around in our socks. I made my bones with Bill that day when he hurled a basketball at my head and I managed to duck. "Good reflexes," he said. I think of these two weeks with Bill as one of the more surreal and memorable experiences of my writer's life. ~ Danny Rubin

The final advantage is the same that applies in every other competitive venture. If you would like to write better than everyone else, you have to want to write better than everyone else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen--editors, agents, and publishers--whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards are not as high. Too many writers are browbeaten into settling for less than their best. ~ William Zinsser

A novelist's lack of awareness of and critical distance to his own body of work is due to a phenomenon that I have noticed in myself and many others: as soon as it is written, every new book erases the last one, leaving me with the impression that I have forgotten it. ~ Patrick Modiano

It had been so long since I'd written, really written, that I'd forgotten what it felt like--how it changed things, shifted everything. I'd forgotten how writing surprises you--how you sit down feeling one thing and come out feeling another--and that I'd never heard my dad's voice in my head like this before, never known I could feel this close to him again, that this letter from him might ever exist. But here it was. ~ Margo Rabb

Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe. ~ Henning Mankell

The Bible was written not to satisfy your curiosity but to help you conform to Christ's image. Not to make you a smarter sinner but to make you like the Saviour. Not to fill your head with a collection of biblicalfacts but to transform your life. ~ Howard G. Hendricks

There is one straight chain of truth without one heretical sentence in that which I have written. ~ Ellen G. White

I've written more songs for this record than I ever have in the past so I'm trying to give it a lot of special attention to be sure my ideas really get translated right. ~ Suzy Bogguss

How lucky are you that you are alive today? Don't forget to live. Choose to live beautifully; it will define your destiny. ~ Debasish Mridha

God exacted interest like a loanshark, you paid and kept paying and still He broke all yr bones, one Yom Kippur, at the beginning of her 30th year, God had written her name once again in the book of loss, Bertha Schneider, let her lose everything, God had written in that pedestrian prose of His. rub it in, pile it on, and let her eat cake, the kind wrapped in plastic, God had scratched in the margin. ~ Andrea Dworkin

Labels. I stuck them on everything. 'Good.' 'Bad.' 'Right.' 'Wrong.' 'Square.' 'Hip.' 'Queer.' 'Normal.' 'Friend.' 'Enemy.' 'Success.' 'Failure.' They're easy to use. They save you the bother of thinking. Those labels stay stuck. They proliferate. They become a habit. Soon, they're covering everything, and everybody, up. You start thinking reality is the labels. Simple labels, written in permanent marker. The trouble is, reality's the opposite. Reality is nuanced, paradoxical, shifting. It's difficult. It's many things at once. That's why we're so crummy at it. People harp on about freedom. All the time. It's everywhere. There are riots and wars about what freedom is and who it's for. But the Queen of Freedoms is this: to be free of labels. ~ David Mitchell

In the two books I wrote, even though they were written in a sort of Joycean gobbledegook, there's many knocks at religion and there is a play about a worker and a capitalist. I've been satirising the system since my childhood. I used to write magazines in school and hand them around. ~ John Lennon

If ever an error had "F" written on it, that grounder did. ~ Jerry Coleman

And it was the idea that you can do a play - like a Shakespeare play, or any well-written play, Arthur Miller, whatever - and say things you could never imagine saying, never imagine thinking in your own life. ~ James Earl Jones

Everyone has their definition of love. There have been countless songs sung about it. A gazillion books, articles, and poems written about it. There are experts on love who will tell you how to get it, keep it, and get over it. ~ Alison G. Bailey

The girl who'd written volumes on the walls but never said a word. ~ Sarah Ockler

Science is the ultimate tool to reveal the laws of nature, and the one word written on its banner is Truth. ~ Dan Shechtman

Most best-sellers are written for readers who are willing to be passive consumers. The blurbs on their covers often highlight the coercive, aggressive power of the text - compulsive page-turner, gut-wrenching, jolting, mind-searing, heart-stopping - what is this, electroshock torture? ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Written, preserved, and passed on to us. What an indescribable blessing it is for us ~ Janette Oke

I mean, the Constitution of this country was written 200 years ago. The house I was living in in Madrid is 350 years old! America is still a project, and you guys are working on it and bringing new things to it every day. That is beautiful to watch. ~ Antonio Banderas

I love actors. I enjoy their company, and I get excited each and every time they bring a character I've written to life. Every so often a talented actor doesn't hook in correctly to a character; or someone gets lost in a labyrinth of over-complicated thoughts, and the character and play suffer. However, most of the time I find actors either end up doing exactly what was in my head, or sometimes do something even better. ~ Christopher Durang

In the stars is written the death of every man. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. ~ Galileo Galilei

Peace may be negotiated by politicians, but it is something written in hearts and minds not on pieces of paper ~ Emmanuel Jal

I think I come under the singer/songwriter badge. I've always written songs right from the very beginning. Because of my style of playing people tend of me more of a guitar player than a singer sometimes. ~ Bert Jansch

History shows us a lot of things. It shows why the Lord's Prayer includes the supplication: "And lead us not into temptation." In my day, dissertations were still written by hand, or drummed out with a typewriter. In the past, you had to round up the literature, find the books and find the passages. Nowadays you click on Wikipedia or Google and you have everything you need. This probably makes it more difficult to resist temptation. ~ Wolfgang Schauble

The Samurai lived by a code of honor, not unlike the code that you live by. It's called the Bushido. It was never written down; was always something the Samurai knew, and it was handed down from one warrior to another. One of the tenets of the code is about justice. Not the pounding of a gavel on the bench of some judge who's been appointed to pass judgment on people by some politician. No, malaka, this concept of justice is what you feel in your bones: to die when it is right and to strike when it is right. ~ Kenneth Eade

There is the truth about the marathon and very few of you have written the truth. Even if I explain to you, you'll never understand it, you're outside of it. ~ Douglas Wakiihuri

I was on a show called '12 Miles of Bad Road' with Lily Tomlin - it was an incredible HBO show. We shot 6 episodes, previewed it before the finale of 'The Sopranos;' it was written up as a 'Great New Show on HBO,' and then the whole thing was canned. Gone. Disappeared. That's when I realized anything can happen in this business. ~ Eliza Coupe

It broke over him, a frothing, churning sea a images and sound, so vivid he had to close his eyes against it and hold his breath. Faces long dead; words spoken and heard; professions of love and regret and hate; episodes of intimacy as painful to recall as those characterised by violence. ~ Stephen Lloyd Jones

In England in the 19th century, advances in printing methods, combined with the rise of a prosperous middle class, engendered a booming new industry of books published just for children. Casting about for cheap story material, English publishers laid hands on the subtle, sensual adult fairy tales of the Continental tradition and revised them into simpler stories instilled with Victorian values. Although these simplified versions retained much of the violence of the older stories, elements of sexuality and moral complexity were carefully scrubbed away - along with the fiesty heroines who appeared everywhere in the older tales, tamed now into models of Victorian propiety and passivity. In the 20th century, the Walt Disney Studios watered down the tales further still in popular animated films like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, continuing the trend of turning active heroines into powerless damsels in distress. Walt Disney considered even the Victorian versions of the tales too dark for 20th century audiences. "It's just that people now don't want fairy stories the way they were written," Disney commented. "They were too rough." ~ Terri Windling

Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order. ~ Bertrand Russell