Pretty Prose Quotes

Beautiful writing is more than pretty prose. It creates resonance in readers' minds with parallels, reversals, and symbols. It conjures a story world that is unique, highly detailed, and brought alive by the characters that dwell there. It offers moments of breath-catching surprise, heart-gripping insight, revelation, and self-understanding. It engages the reader's mind with an urgent point, which we might call theme. ~ Donald Maass

Nightside, cities glistened in chains, and a spray of tinkertoy habitats girdled the planet. Gossamer starbridges reached from the equator towards orbit. ~ Alastair Reynolds

Some stories aren't meant to be told. The more they get told, the more they change from what they once were, worn down and smooth like pieces of sea glass too beautiful to have ever been broken bottles. ~ Caren Gussoff

It still hurt her to see their poems before her, printed in the curving Yeged-dai script, using Yegedin forms and the images so beloved of the Yegedin: the single pebble, the grasshopper at twilight, the song of a heartbroken lark sitting in a bent tree. ~ Yoon Ha Lee

The rhyme pad was a spell book - it summoned asphalt elementals, elder gods, and weeping ancestors, all of whom had your back. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

In space there are no seasons, and this is as true of the ships that cross the distances between humanity's far-flung homes. But we measure our seasons anyway: by a smile, a silence, a song. ~ Yoon Ha Lee

The city lies at the galaxy's dust-stranded edge, enfolding a moon that used to be a world, or a world that used to be a moon; no one is certain anymore. In the mornings its skies are radiant with clouds like the plumage of a bird ever-rising, and in the evenings the stars scatter light across skies stitched and unstitched by the comings and goings of fire-winged starships. Its walls are made of metal the color of undyed silk, and its streets bloom with aleatory lights, small solemn symphonies, the occasional duel. ~ Yoon Ha Lee

It was shivery and scant. Scared. Skint. But just around the edges it was still scintillant. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

I went up on the hill and walked about until twilight had deepened into an autumn night with a benediction of starry quietude over it. I was alone but not lonely. I was a queen in halls of fancy. ~ L.M. Montgomery

He took me down and out into the afterlife of the brightly lit streets, a haze of rain around each streetlight like a galaxy, the whole street a universe spread out like a banquet. ~ Michael Montoure

The broken centerline of the road in her headlights just an endless pulsing ribbon. ~ Michael Montoure

The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it's one of the shapes money takes when it freezes. Money has trickled through this room for years and years, as if through an underground cavern, crusting and hardening like stalactites into these forms. ~ Margaret Atwood

Polling in a general election is pretty accurate, because turnout is usually high. ~ Ken Livingstone

There was no place in her life for pretty things –if there were, it was only for them to get destroyed. ~ Kayla Krantz

I don't want any money."
I put the wallet away.
She said: "What are you going to do about last night?"
"What should I do?"
"Kill that son of a bitch."
"And fry?"
"You're too smart to fry."
"Maybe," I said. "But, lady, I've been drawing the line at murder lately."
She lay against the pillow, watching me. Her skin was dead white and it made the black eyes look big. She wasn't young, but she was still good-looking. Her shoulders were round and firm. As far as I could tell she was naked under the sheet. I sat down on a rocking-chair. It creaked under my weight.
"But you want to get him, don't you?" she asked.
"I wouldn't mind."
"Neither would I," she said.
"He's pretty tough for a gal to tackle."
"He knocked out my teeth."
The way she said it, it sounded like a good reason for bumping off a man. Maybe it was, at that. A girl likes to hold on to her teeth. ~ Jonathan Latimer

Bloody Jack. What is it with him? What is it about him that he seems to charm everybody an everythin that crosses his path? Ash an pretty well every other Free Hawk, my sister an now my damn crow. I swear, if there was a rock in his path that he couldn't be bothered steppin over, all he'd hafta do was give it one look an it'd roll outta the way. ~ Moira Young

Jennifer Aniston is cute, but I wouldn't call her beautiful. I think that is why Cheryl Cole is so popular, because she is just so pretty and the public are starved of gorgeous people. When I was young, everybody on screen was gorgeous. ~ Joan Collins

Demanding historical (or scientific) veracity as a prerequisite for truth is another kind of tunnel vision. To do so is to mistake poetry for prose. ~ Charles Kimball

I'm pretty smart with boys. I know how to handle them and I know what to do around them. ~ Ariel Winter

We do not play on Graves
Because there isn't Room
Besides - it isn't even - it slants
And People come
And put a Flower on it
And hang their faces so
We're fearing that their Hearts will drop
And crush our pretty play
And so we move as far
As Enemies - away
Just looking round to see how far
It is - Occasionally - ~ Emily Dickinson

There are a thousand beautiful women out there, but only a handful of them possess the grace required by such beauty to stop it from looking ugly. ~ Pawan Mishra

Let me tell you what I actually know, I actually know you're a dick and it sounds like you're part of a click of dicks, and you, and your click, should beat it." I'm pretty sure a group of dicks is called a click, if not, it should be. It's a travesty of the human language, if it isn't. ~ Jason Rose

Like all of us, we have pretty serious mood swings. ~ Josh Silver

I demo all of my songs on Garage Band, where I pretty much play everything - not very well, but I manage to hammer out a drum beat and a bass idea. ~ Jenny Lewis

Maybe "having enough" has a second meaning beyond the basic economic security a family needs. Maybe it means accepting that a rich full life with a job and family will be rewarding, but it certainly won't be perfect. As many of us who have combined kids and careers know all too well, some days it's really pretty messy. And that's OK. ~ Willow Bay

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand. ~ Aldous Huxley

The Buddha taught that we're not actually in control, which is a pretty scary idea. But when you let things be as they are, you will be a much happier, more balanced, compassionate person. ~ Pema Chodron

I was determined to be both pretty and fierce, as Mother had said I could be. Just because I was interested in a man's job didn't mean I had to give up being girly. Who defined those roles anyhow? "Truly, ~ Kerri Maniscalco

I try to stay pretty level-headed and just do what I have to do. ~ Sidney Crosby

Once I had asked, 'But are you a Democrat or a Republican?" and Jonathan said, "I'm socially progressive but fiscally conservative," and Doug Miles, a football player who also came to Sunday breakfast but only ever read the sports section and ignored everyone, lifted his head and said, "Is that like being bisexual?" Which I actually thought was funny, even though I was pretty sure Doug was a jerk. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

Mace, you never read Smoky the Cowhorse,did you?
No.
Well,ol' Smoky, he had somebad things happen to him,had the heart knocked clean out of him.But he hung on and came out of it okay.I've been bashed up pretty good,Mason, but I'm going to make it. ~ S.E. Hinton

I made sure that instead of people making fun of me, like every comedian probably says, I made fun of myself first so they would get distracted and just laugh. I was pretty brutally picked on for a while growing up. It was always the really pretty girls, the hot girls and then there was me. So I had to do something to get any sort of attention. ~ Eliza Coupe

Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. ~ Elmore Leonard

Good morning, Mike," I mumbled, making a beeline for the coffeepot.
"Oooooh!" he teased again. "Someone is getting married tonight! Woooooooo…"
"Yep," I said, taking that first glorious sip of java. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"
Mike put his hand over his mouth and snickered. Then he asked, "So…are you guys gonna do some…some kissin'?"
"I certainly hope so," I said. This only served to make Mike laugh harder.
"Ooooooh!" he squealed. "Are you gonna have a baby?"
Oh, Lord.
I took another hit of Gevalia and answered, "Not today." Mike cracked up again. He was clearly on a roll.
"What's so funny this morning, Mike?" I asked.
"Your s-s-s-stomach is gonna get so fat," he answered. Mike was quickly approaching manic stage--the result of a large, busy weekend and his routine being disrupted. Soon the inevitable crash would come. I just hoped I was on the plane to Australia when it happened. It wasn't going to be pretty.
"Oh, whatever, Mike," I answered, feigning indignation. ~ Ree Drummond

Hopscotch is played with a pebble that you move with the tip of your toe. The things you need : a sidewalk, a pebble, a toe, and a pretty chalk drawing, preferably in colors. On top is Heaven, on the bottom is Earth, it's very hard to get the pebble up to Heaven,you almost always miscalculate and the stone goes off the drawing. But little by little you start to get the knack of how to jump over the different squares (spiral hopscotch, rectangular hopscotch, fantasy hopscotch, not played very often ) and then one day you learn how to leave Earth and make the pebble climb up into Heaven (Et tous nos amours, Emmanuele was sobbing face down), the worst part of it is that precisely at that moment,
when practically no one has learned how to make the pebble climb up into Heaven, childhood is over all of a sudden and you're into novels, into the anguish of the senseless divine trajectory, into the speculation about another Heaven that you have to learn to reach too. ~ Julio Cortazar

Growing up in rural Utah had a lot of benefits, but in an environment that prized conformity, fit wasn't one of them. I ended up in my senior year with a 0.9 GPA, which I think you actually have to work pretty hard to get. In the exact same month they kicked me out of school, my girlfriend - still my wife today - told me she was pregnant. So, it was an interesting start to life: working 10 or 12 minimum-wage jobs; getting bored really quickly and quitting; having my in-laws - rightly - in full panic mode and thinking I had some kind of character flaw. ~ L. Todd Rose

When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteor hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteorite. ~ Justin Sewell

I think what is nice about 'Elf,' and why it doesn't play as one long sketch, is that the character actually grows up during the course of the film. It's not just a character that you can keep checking in on and keep doing sketches about. It's a story. I'm pretty proud of how we told it. ~ Jon Favreau

Hyperbole comes easily to us. To find measured prose and even tone in the midst of aching grief was tough. ~ Maithili Rao

You know your father, God rest his soul... Your father had a philosophy the he held to pretty strongly. And it's one that served him very, very well... He believed that if there were things in this world that you had to offer, things that you did well - better than anyone else... things that you could do that helped people feel better about themselves... well, he believed that it wasn't just a good idea to do those things... he believed it was your responsibility to do those things. Don't try to be something else. Don't try to be less. Great things are going to happen to you and your life Peter. Great things. And with that will come great responsibility. Do you understand? Great responsibility. ~ Brian Michael Bendis

I moved out of my house at 17 and half, I rented an apartment ... I pulled all the things off. It was pretty amazing and I lived a pretty good life, I had a car and I was making good money. ~ Eric Hernandez

The crowd is a pretty good indicator when it's good, because it's kind of a universal energy that gets passed around. ~ Tommy Lee