Evelyn Hugo Quotes

Do you think I'm a whore?" Harry pulled over to the side of the road and turned to me. "I think you're brilliant. I think you're tough. And I think the word whore is something ignorant people throw around when they have nothing else.

… "Isn't it awfully convenient," Harry added, "that when men make the rules, the one thing that's looked down on the most is the one thing that would bear them the greatest threat? Imagine if every single woman on the planet wanted something in exchange when she gave up her body. You'd all be ruling the place. An armed populace. Only men like me would stand a chance against you. And that's the last thing those assholes want, a world run by people like you and me."

I laughed, my eyes still puffy and tired from crying. "So am I a whore or not?" "Who knows?" he said. "We're all whores, really, in some way or another. At least in Hollywood." … "But I like you this way. I like you impure and scrappy and formidable. I like the Evelyn Hugo who sees the world for what it is and then goes out there and wrestles what she wants out of it. So, you know, put whatever label you want on it, just don't change. That would be the real tragedy. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

It is two A.M., and you are tired. You miss the love of your life. You want to go home. You would rather be with her, in bed, hearing the light buzz of her snoring, watching her sleep, than be here.
[...]
You imagine a world where the two of you can go out to dinner together on a Saturday night and no one thinks twice about it. It makes you want to cry, the simplicity of it, the smallness of it. You have worked so hard for a life so grand. And now all you want are the smallest freedoms. The daily peace of loving plainly. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

Nothing becomes reality in the political life of a nation that was not present in its literature as spirit. ~ Hugo Von Hofmannsthal

It was like a hand which had opened and thrown suddenly upon her a handful of sunbeams. ~ Victor Hugo

You see me no more comfortable in it than a cat coiffed with a calabash. ~ Victor Hugo

True, I tore the drapery from the altar; but it was to dress the wounds of the country. ~ Victor Hugo

I'm always trepidatious and excited about what I do. I wouldn't choose to do something, unless I am really excited about it. ~ Hugo Weaving

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background. ~ Victor Hugo

So, what's the status?" said Ira as he pulled himself down to his couch.
"Will is turning into a starship," Hugo replied, clearly only half in jest. "We're about to watch history in the making. ~ Alex Lamb

If the script grabs me and appeals to me, I'm really very keen to work on it. ~ Hugo Weaving

To write a poem you must have a streak of arrogance
not in real life I hope. In real life try to be nice. It will save you a hell of a lot of trouble and give you more time to write. ~ Richard Hugo

At least you are mine! Soon – in a few months, perhaps, my angel will sleep in my arms, will awaken in my arms, will live there. All your thought at all moments, all your looks will be for me; all my thought, all my moments, all my looks will be for you! ~ Victor Hugo

We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school. ~ Evelyn Waugh

I remember. How many minutes do I have left President? About one, one minute. ~ Hugo Chavez

He never was known to have a sweetheart; he had not time to be in love. ~ Victor Hugo

These memories are the memorials and pledges of the vital hours of a lifetime. These hours of afflatus in the human spirit, the springs of art, are, in their mystery, akin to the epochs of history, when a race which for centuries has lived content, unknown, behind its own frontiers, digging, eating, sleeping, begetting, doing what was requisite for survival and nothing else, will, for a generation or two, stupefy the world; commit all manner of crimes, perhaps; follow the wildest chimeras, go down in the end in agony, but leave behind a record of new heights scaled and new rewards won for all mankind; the vision fades, the soul sickens, and the routine of survival starts again. ~ Evelyn Waugh

He had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by tasting the forbidden fruit. ~ Victor Hugo

An imagined town is at least as real as an actual town. If it isn't, you may be in the wrong business. Our words come from obsessions we must submit to, whatever the social cost. It can be hard. It can be worse forty years from now if you feel you could have done it and didn't. It is narcissistic, vain, egotistical, unrealistic, selfish, and hateful to assume emotional ownership of a town or a word. It is also essential. ~ Richard Hugo

Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence. ~ Victor Hugo

He loved books; books are cold but safe friends. ~ Victor Hugo

The world needs a true leader, an Obama that promotes peace and understanding in the world. ~ Hugo Chavez

He understood how to sit down and hold his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his love, ~ Victor Hugo

I caution against communication because once language exist only to convey information, it is dying.
In news articles the relation of the words to the subject is a strong one. The relation of the words to the writer is weak. (Since the majority of your reading has been newspapers, you are used to seeing language function this way).
When you write a poem these relations must reverse themselves: The relation of the word to the subject must weaken – the relation of the words to the writer (you) must take on strength.
This is probably the hardest thing about writing poems

In a poem you make something up, say for example a town, but an imagined town is at least as real as an actual town. If it isn't you may be in the wrong business.
Our triggering subjects, like our words, come from obsessions we must submit to, whatever the social cost. It can be hard. It can be worse 40 years from now if you feel you could have done it and didn't.


RICHARD HUGO
Public versus private poets:

With public poets the intellectual and emotional contents of the words are the same for the reader as for the writer. With the private poet, the words, at least certain key words, mean something to the poet they don't mean to the reader. A sensitive reader perceives this relation of poet to word and in a way that relation – the strange way the poet emotionally possesses his vocabulary – is one of the mysteries and preservative forces of the art.Richard Hugo

Creative Writing Poetry