Literary Training Quotes

My aspiration to spend time at sea as requisite literary training died long ago, as a teenager, on a white-knuckled ferry ride to Elba during a torrential rainstorm [Kushner, Rachel, Diary, London Review of Books, January 14, 2015]. ~ Rachel Kushner

Eastman demanded equal pay for equal work and a "revolution in the early training and education of both boys and girls. It must be womanly as well as manly to earn your own living, to stand on your own feet. And it must be manly as well as womanly to know how to cook and sew and clean and take care of yourself." She was aware that "men will not give up their privilege of helplessness without a struggle" and that they actually "cultivated ignorance about household matters. ~ Frances Goldin

If I had to choose one author to critique By The Next Pause it would be author Lee Maracle. She is a fascinating and incredible storyteller. After listening to her speak at this year's Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD), I think she would be that one person who could tear my work apart, down to the studs, but then help me dig even deeper with one of her lovely anecdotes that would set everything straight again. ~ G. Barton-Sinkia

I think that there is a bias in the current literary climate, which is not only very Western but very male. ~ Gish Jen

There never were any women who liked to cook for men everyday. There were only women who cooked for survival and pretended to like it. And now there are men who cook for survival. Like you. Think of this as survivalist training. Very macho. ~ Jennifer Crusie

Awakening involves mind training. Step back and pay attention to the thoughts that come into awareness. Feel your desire for healing. Preferences are judgments, and as the mind yields to the nonjudgmental Perspective of the Holy Spirit, the Awakening is obvious. Observe that as long as appetites seem to exist there are the ego defenses of indulgence and repression. Neither is better or worse than the other, for they are the same illusion. The miracle offers a real alternative and when one is consistently miracle-minded, defenses are no longer needed. ~ David Hoffmeister

The martial arts are based upon understanding, hard work and a total comprehension of skills. Power training and the use of force are easy, but total comprehension of all of the skills of the martial arts is very difficult to achieve. ~ Bruce Lee

[L]ike poems, cruising carves privacy out of public spaces. Poems are a kind of private communication that occurs in public speech. And I think cruising is that too: a training in reading occult codes; a way of seeing a significance in the world that most people don't see. ~ Garth Greenwell

Although I was raised Jewish, my upbringing didn't include any formal religious education or training. ~ Melissa Gilbert

Effective spiritual leadership does not come as a result of theological training or seminary degree, as important as education is. Jesus told His disciples, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you" (John 15:16). The sovereign selection of God gives great confidence to Christian workers. We can truly say, "I am here neither by selection of an individual nor election of a group but by the almighty appointment of God. ~ J. Oswald Sanders

Gordie: Alright, alright, Mickey's a mouse, Donald's a duck, Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy?
Vern: If I could only have one food for the rest of my life? That's easy-Pez. Cherry-flavored Pez. No question about it.
Teddy: Goofy's a dog. He's definitely a dog.
Gordie: I knew the $64,000 question was fixed. There's no way anybody could know that much about opera!
Chris: He can't be a dog. He drives a car and wears a hat.
Gordie: Wagon Train's a really cool show, but did you notice they never get anywhere? They just keep wagon training.
Vern: Oh, God. That's weird. What the hell is Goofy? ~ Stephen King

Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur Thou still unravished bride of quietness, then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary. ~ Terry Eagleton

[F]or whenever I had taken in hand any Greek or Latin book, or had heard anything worth remembering, I used to jot down whatever took my fancy, of any and every kind, without any definite plan or order; and such notes I would lay away as an aid to my memory, like a kind of literary storehouse, so that when the need arose of a word or a subject which I chanced for the moment to have forgotten, and the books from which it had taken it were not at hand, I could readily find and produce it. ~ Aulus Gellius

Without training you will not grow wings. ~ David Belle

Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the migraine headache called life. The lighting dim and secluded, mostly covering the tables, counters and the door to the bathroom. The walls were decorated in decades of memories, favorite sports teams and other miscellaneous decor that was typical of small bars such as this one. It was too dark to tell what they were from a distance.
There was a thick layer of smoke hovering in the air around the ceiling lights, the place was smothered in it but was strongest above everyone's heads. The smell was the classic stale bar odor of cigarettes and cheap cigars. ~ J.C. Joranco

I'm looking for the exit."
"The Last Exit to Brooklyn, will it be?"
"Er, no! Just the way out."
From "One man in his time ~ Anthony J. Saunders

Nothing like this has been attempted before. ( ... ) It might be called a literary Porto Alegre. That implies a beginning, with much fierce argument and discussion to come. But whatever the outcome of ensuing criticisms or objections, The World Republic of Letters
empire more than republic, as Casanova shows
is likely to have the same sort of liberating impact at large as Said's Orientalism, with which it stands comparison. ~ Perry Anderson

Certainly the most diverse, if minor, pastime of literary life is the game of Find the Author. ~ Arthur Miller

The literary artist will ... portray what he knows, and little else. Imagination is built upon knowledge, and his dreams will rest upon his facts. He is worth to the world just about what he has learned from it, and no more. ~ Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

Keep getting asked by letter and on the street by Jane and John Does dressed in spandex how they can prepare simple "gourmet" dinners in ten minutes so as to prolong, presumably, their cross-training and spritzer-drinking binges, massage and colonic appointments, drumming and marriage-counseling sessions, and tarot-card swap clubs. An easy answer here. Scoop ample quantities of Skippy on two paper plates. Handcuff each other and then slam your faces down into the plates with gusto. Good for the gluteus maximus. And it will bring you together at the sink, plus you won't have to violate your space by answering the phone. Back to the ~ Jim Harrison

I don't really watch that much TV. I have training camp to worry about. ~ Raylee Johnson

Faced with the numbering logic of neoliberal regimes, literature offers an intervention in order to consider identity and voice, to consider representation in both the political and artistic sense of the term... [Literature and art] cultivate tension between an unresolved past and present, between invisibility and exposure, showing the dualities of face and mask that leave their trace on identitarian struggles today. ~ Francine Masiello

Wonderful." Avenant rolled his eyes. "Letty's killed the doctor. Now I'll have to start all over with training another one to stand when I enter a room. It'll take weeks. ~ Cassandra Gannon

The local liberal press, much molested by the censorship, had its courageous and skilful writers such as VM Doroshevich, the master of that semi-literary and semi-journalistic essay at which Bronstein himself was one day to excel. ~ Isaac Deutscher

He himself was a beautiful weapon, forged by centuries of ruthless training and warring. ~ Sarah J. Maas

As an athlete you're taught to be selfish. When I'm training, it's usually all about me. ~ Ronda Rousey

I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then ... it's sort of like taking the training wheels off, trying to write a book that's fun in the same way without relying on quite such mechanical or external beats. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the res ~ Mark Nepo

The added burden of communication is made up of two parts, training and intercommunication. Each worker must be trained in the technology, the goals of the effort, the overall strategy, and the plan of work. This training cannot be partitioned, so this part of the added effort varies linearly with the number of workers. ~ Anonymous

Go to lots of interviews, at least one a month even when you don't need a job, to keep in training for when you do. ~ Jilly Cooper

The report was so loud Nicholas thought the guard had fired into his head. He staggered as the man's grip fell away, his hand going to his cheek. He felt the warm wetness of blood, but it wasn't his. He looked for the Gardier and saw him sprawled on the ground, one neat bullet hole in his forehead. He straightened up, reaching for a handkerchief until he remembered the damn uniform jacket had no pockets. Wiping the blood away with his hand, he said under his breath, "I knew emphasizing firearms training over deportment lessons would benefit in the long run."
His daughter moved toward him, lowering the pistol, staring. ~ Martha Wells

What then, is time?" asks the saint. "If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not." Neither the past nor the future, argues Augustine, truly exists - and the present is merely an instant. "The present of things past is memory," he writes; "the present of things present is perception; and the present of things future is expectation." Augustine's conclusion - never fully stated, but unmistakably implied - is that time is subjective. It exists in the mind alone, and nowhere else. ~ John Wray

Common hypocrites pass themselves off as doves; political and literary hypocrites pose as eagles. But don't be fooled by their eagle-like appearance. These are not eagles, but rats or dogs. ~ Anton Chekhov

So a dog's value came from the training AND the breeding. And by breeding, Edgar supposed he meant both the bloodlines - the particular dogs in their ancestry - and all the information in the file cabinets. Because the files, with their photographs, measurements, notes, charts, cross-references, and scores, told the STORY of the dog - what a MEANT as his father put it. ~ David Wroblewski

The world wants you to find extraordinary women threatening. Undo that training. When you feel threatened, it's a great sign that you have just found an ally who will bring you new energy and insight and together you will rise. ~ Rachel Rosenfelt

The only real training for leadership is leadership. ~ Antony Jay

The author is impacted by a hidden insistence that takes the shape of different combinations each time a
different text is produced but the underlying problem remains the same for him. ~ Anuradha Bhattacharyya

I never had any film training. I went to Northwestern. I studied education and theater. So it was all theater training. ~ Zach Gilford

The Banff Mountain [Book] Festival attracts this huge number of travel writers. Whereas when I go to literary festivals ... ~ John Gimlette

In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli and that the final work usually ignores or even contradicts them. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

We don't genuinely need more literary geniuses. One can only read so many books in a lifetime. ~ Bill James

They found security in letting go rather than in holding on and, in so doing, developed an attitude toward life that might be called psychophysical judo. Nearly twenty-five centuries ago, the Chinese sages Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu had called it wu-wei, which is perhaps best translated as "action without forcing." It is sailing in the stream of the Tao, or course of nature, and navigating the currents of li (organic pattern) - a word that originally signified the natural markings in jade or the grain in wood. As this attitude spread and prevailed in the wake of Vibration Training, people became more and more indulgent about eccentricity in life-style, tolerant of racial and religious differences, and adventurous in exploring unusual ways of loving. ~ Alan W. Watts