Pittsburgh Pens Quotes

I take up my own pen again - the pen of all my old unforgettable efforts and sacred struggles. To myself - today - I need say no more. Large and full and high the future still opens. It is now indeed that I may do the work of my life. And I will. ~ Henry James

It is one of the talents of great stylists to make obsolete words cease from appearing obsolete through the way in which they introduce them in their writing. Obsolete words which under the pens of others would seem stilted or out of place, occur most naturally under theirs. This is owing to the tact & judgment of the writers who know when
& when only - the disused term can be introduced, when it is artistically agreeable or linguistically necessary; & of course then the obsolete word becomes obsolete only in name. It is recalled into existence by the natural requirements of a powerful or subtle style. It is not a corpse disinterred (as with less skillful writers) but a beautiful body awaked from a long & refreshing sleep. ~ Constantine P. Cavafy

My bag hit the floor, spilling overpriced books and pens across the shiny floor. My pens! My glorious pens rolled everywhere. ~ J. Lynn

Jean-Marie Le Pen is a holocaust denier who was convicted and fined for dismissing Nazi concentration camps as a, quote, "Detail in History." But he kept running this anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, populist unapologetic xenophobic far right party in French politics. ~ Rachel Maddow

Sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

There is a movement happening, a quiet one.
A low-profile, low-resolution revolution.
Comprised of writers and dreamers, of guerrilla artists and thought-ninjas.
Those with something to say.
They communicate through text inscribed on true public spaces, rather than blogs and forums.
Choosing fewer words, even without being bound by 140 character limits.
Using ink instead of pixels.
Sending messages in living, breathing space.
Pens scream louder into the void.
Even if permanent ink is not aptly named. ~ Erin Morgenstern

Jane snorted out in disgust. "Okay, the good news is spotting the saurus just got a hell of a lot
easier. Plus we've got a ton of free bait."
"The bad news?" Taggart asked.
"Smart boy. Cookie for knowing that there's bad news." Jane eased her SUV across the worn
divided line to drive along the berm. "Bad news, Pittsburgh beef cows are the meanest son-of-abitches."
"So, we have to dodge several tons of pissed off sirloin while filming one hungry dinosaur?"
"Welcome to Pittsburgh. ~ Wen Spencer

People still think of me as a cartoonist, but the only thing I lift a pen or pencil for these days is to sign a contract, a check, or an autograph. ~ Walt Disney

[B]ut once the bureaucrats sink their barbed pens into the lives of Indians, the paper starts flying, a blizzard of legal forms, a waste of ink by the gallon, a correspondence to which there is no end or reason. That's when I began to see what we were becoming, and the years have borne me out: a tribe of file cabinets and triplicates, a tribe of single-space documents, directives, policy. A tribe of pressed trees. A tribe of chicken-scratch that can be scattered by a wind, diminished to ashes by one struck match. ~ Louise Erdrich

We like to imagine that Shaun is in George Romero's universe, that it's happening at the same time as the Pittsburgh outbreak. ~ Edgar Wright

One time my whole family played hide and seek. They found my mother in Pittsburgh! ~ Rodney Dangerfield

I especially love all the instruments of art: inks, pens, paintbrushes, watercolors and oils, fine papers and canvases, and although I love to mess around with these tools and objects, I have minimal artistic skills. ~ Sharon Creech

I like pens. My writing is so amazing there's never a need to erase. ~ Todd Barry

How can you guys do this?" Cotton paces back and forth. "How can you act like everything is okay when these people are doing everything they can to break us? Haven't you noticed things have gotten worse since the ocean race started? Every single day, worse! Sometimes I don't even know if they want us to survive at all."

Braun stands up, walks over to Cotton, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," he says. "I understand. You're from Minnesota. I'd be angry, too, if my team hadn't gone to the Super Bowl since the seventies."

Cotton jerks back but smiles despite himself. "I'm from Pittsburgh, dick."

"Jesus H. Christ," Guy pipes in. "The Steelers are the worst."

"You want to say that to my face?" Cotton says.

Guy cracks his knuckles absently. "Think I just did. ~ Victoria Scott

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. ~ Pearl S. Buck

These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers' faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings in all kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall immediately find, from the whole thread and tenor of them, that the ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and taken up with the faults and blemishes, and oversights, and mistakes of other writers; and let the subject treated on be whatever it will, their imaginations are so entirely possessed and replete with the defects of other pens, that the very quintessence of what is bad does of necessity distil into their own, by which means the whole appears to be nothing else but an abstract of the criticisms themselves have made. ~ Jonathan Swift

God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen, my (pick) shovel, my paint brush, my (sewing) needle - and my heart and thoughts. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

It may be no surprise that Pittsburgh has direct flights to London, Paris and Frankfurt, but consider this: many of the tourists here have come from Europe to the capital of culture in the Alleghenies. ~ Bill Dedman

No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had ~ Samuel Johnson

To be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Stasis is something that has marked my life since I was a boy growing up in Pittsburgh with my mother. It was the natural state that we existed in. For one thing, she suffered from a debilitating depression throughout my childhood, and depression is nothing if not static. ~ Said Sayrafiezadeh

It is understandable how some people could give way to this kind of pervasive pessimism, but we speak of a gospel which brings good tidings of great joy and this must be reflected in our lives, if we are to be believable especially as we suggest to others that there is, in fact, not only a better way, but also the way. Scriptures that speak of man as a being who "might have joy" have more impact when falling from the lips or pens of men and women whose lives give fresh evidence of the validity of that scripture. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

I thought that words and books and pens were more powerful than guns. ~ Malala Yousafzai

I like to drive and I like to travel. When I drive on the open road, it's like sometimes the car turns into a pen and the road is a piece of paper. ~ Chuck D

I think it says wonders about people that can write an entire album, and put out an entire album of great songs. I mean, the Brad Paisley's, Alan Jackson especially, even Taylor Swift - those people can really pen great stuff. ~ Joe Nichols

When Jonas Salk, a scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, found it and developed the first polio vaccine in 1952, he did not patent the lifesaving treatment. "There is no patent," Salk told the broadcaster Edward R. Murrow: "Could you patent the sun? ~ Naomi Klein

The Arab World is writing a new future; the pen is in our own hands. ~ Abdallah II Of Jordan

If the veins in the back of your legs look like the street map of greater Pittsburgh, you ain't nobody's babydoll. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

I don't keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slipped away, as though my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason I don't travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost. ~ Alex Garland

I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand and enter in a little book short hints of what you feel that is common or that may be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such portcullis in your memory. ~ Benjamin Franklin

I say is someone in there?' The voice is the young post-New formalist from
Pittsburgh who affects Continental and wears an ascot that won't stay tight, with that
hesitant knocking of when you know perfectly well someone's in there, the
bathroom door composed of thirty-six that's three times a lengthwise twelve
recessed two-bevelled squares in a warped rectangle of steam-softened wood, not
quite white, the bottom outside corner right here raw wood and mangled from
hitting the cabinets' bottom drawer's wicked metal knob, through the door and
offset 'Red' and glowering actors and calendar and very crowded scene and pubic
spirals of pale blue smoke from the elephant-colored rubble of ash and little
blackened chunks in the foil funnel's cone, the smoke's baby-blanket blue that's sent
her sliding down along the wall past knotted washcloth, towel rack, blood-flower
wallpaper and intricately grimed electrical outlet, the light sharp bitter tint of a heated
sky's blue that's left her uprightly fetal with chin on knees in yet another North
American bathroom, deveiled, too pretty for words, maybe the Prettiest Girl Of All
Time (Prettiest G.O.A.T.), knees to chest, slew-footed by the radiant chill of the
claw-footed tub's porcelain, Molly's had somebody lacquer the tub in blue, lacquer,
she's holding the bottle, recalling vividly its slogan for the past generation was The
Choice of a Nud ~ David Foster Wallace

I would say Pittsburgh softly each time before throwing him up. Whisper Pittsburgh with my mouth against the tiny ear and throw him higher. Pittsburgh and happiness high up. The only way to leave even the smallest trace. So that all his life her son would feel gladness unaccountably when anyone spoke of the ruined city of steel in America. Each time almost remembering something maybe important that got lost. ~ Jack Gilbert

Just growing up in Pittsburgh and knowing different neighborhoods, having family there and just loving it, it's like no other place. ~ Wiz Khalifa

When I have fears that I may ceace to be, Before my pen has gleaned my teaming brain. ~ John Keats

There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen. There is always a way out. ~ H.L. Mencken

The pencil is mightier than the pen. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don't allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday. ~ Maya Angelou

Do you think I am standing here, making this up as I go? I am sorry to disillusion you. I am not Robin Williams. I am the king of the pen. ~ Mitch Hedberg

Pittsburgh felt like the perfect size of a city to me. There's enough to do, but it's not like living in a circus. I also really loved how sports-enthusiastic Pittsburgh people are: how proud of their sports they are. ~ Joel Edgerton

I don't even own a computer. I write by hand then I type it up on an old manual typewriter. But I cross out a lot - I'm not writing in stone tablets, it's just ink on paper. I don't feel comfortable without a pen or a pencil in my hand. I can't think with my fingers on the keyboard. Words are generated for me by gripping the pen, and pressing the point on the paper. ~ Paul Auster

Tear It Down"

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of racoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within the body. ~ Jack Gilbert

The great thing about making picture books is that you can make absolutely anything you want happen. It's a bit like making a film, but you don't need lots of money for actors and costumes - you just need pens, paper, and your imagination. ~ Mini Grey

Like everything, what compels one to put pen to paper is a great question. ~ Todd Solondz

I thought about this for days, just as I thought of the special-ed teacher I met in Pittsburgh. "You know," I said, "I hear those words and automatically think Handicapped, or, Learning disabled. But aren't a lot of your students just assholes?"
"You got it," she said. Then she told me about a kid - last day of class - who wrote on the blackboard, "Mrs. J____ is a cock master."
I was impressed because I'd never heard that term before. She was impressed because the boy had spelled it correctly. ~ David Sedaris

Sylvia would have taken it seriously- so strong was her devotion to the innate intelligence of form. Those pretty tools like glue and pens, pasting together look-books – for Sylvia it would have been like toy making or arranging jewels. Unfortunately, Sylvia's flair for design and graphics went unnoticed by the Mademoiselle staff, who had already pigeonholed her as a "writer". ~ Elizabeth Winder

Rising demand for animal products highlights microbiological risks, with animal-welfare measures sometimes creating new hazards. For example, open pens for poultry may increase the spread of communicable diseases like avian influenza. ~ Louise Fresco

I'm not sure Mario is going to get accolafes he deserves, especially from outside the game. But from within, the players, the people who follow closely, realize exactly what he's broughtto the table, exactly what he has done. People tend to forget ... hockey was dying in Pittsburgh before he got there. I played there. It was almost dead. I'm sorry, but the NHL would not have a franchise in Pittsburgh today had Mario not come along. Think about it, no hockey in Pittsburgh. ~ Wayne Gretzky

The waves smash against rocks, boulder thunders upon bolder. Granite men grind one another, leaving their clean sand to floor the ocean.
The alternative would be for the republic to breed up a race of men who could work together without growing violent: men more interested in getting somewhere than having their own way.
Haniel Long: Homestead 1892: Pittsburgh Memoranda. ~ Haniel Long

... you know what was really messing me up when I got down there to Pittsburgh? Was how young he seemed. He kept asking me things like what did I think of Kanye West's music, and did I think he should hold on to Kevin Garnett in this fantasy basketball league he was in or trade him. And how he wasn't just in this league; he was commissioner of it. Like that was some big mark of distinction: commissioner of make-believe. And I wanted to slam him, one-handed, against the wall, the way he used to do to me, and scream in his face, 'Stop it! Act your age!' ... I didn't do it, though. I wanted to, but I couldn't. 'Honor thy father,' you know what I'm saying? So instead, I grabbed my car keys, got out of there, and took off. It was messing with my head, you know? You get out of there alive, more or less, wait for your father to come see you at the hospital you're stuck at, and when you finally go to see him, he's younger than you are. ~ Wally Lamb