Writing Desk Quotes

The Cardinal was bent over his writing desk, the room unchanged save for the light of what appeared a small antique oil lamp. And there were illuminated letters in the book before him, tiny figures fitted into the capitals, the whole gleaming as he let his hand, quivering, turn the page.
"Ah, think of it," he said, smiling as he saw Tonio, "written language the possession of those who took such pains to preserve it. I am forever entranced with the forms in which knowledge is given us, not by nature, but by our fellow man. ~ Anne Rice

Sugar leans her chin against the knuckles of the hand that holds the pen. Glistening on the page between her silk-shrouded elbows lies an unfinished sentence. The heroine of her novel has just slashed the throat of a man. The problem is how, precisely, the blood will flow. Flow is too gentle a word; spill implies carelessness; spurt is out of the question because she has used the word already, in another context, a few lines earlier. Pour out implies that the man has some control over the matter, which he most emphatically doesn't; leak is too feeble for the savagery of the injury she has inflicted upon him. Sugar closes her eyes and watches, in the lurid theatre of her mind, the blood issue from the slit neck. When Mrs Castaway's warning bell sounds, she jerks in surprise.
Hastily, she scrutinises her bedroom. Everything is neat and tidy. All her papers are hidden away, except for this single sheet on her writing-desk.
Spew, she writes, having finally been given, by tardy Providence, the needful word. ~ Michel Faber

He leaned against the writing desk and stayed there till nightfall, lost in sorrowful thoughts. After all, she had loved him. ~ Gustave Flaubert

The maid found a handkerchief of hers, under the bed in which she had died. A ring that had been missing turned up in his own writing desk. A tradesman arrived with fabric she had ordered three weeks ago. Each day, some further evidence of a task half finished, a scheme incomplete. He found a novel, with her place marked.
And this is it. ~ Hilary Mantel

A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.
James, what's wrong?' the friend asked. 'Is it the work?'
Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn't it always?
How many words did you get today?' the friend pursued.
Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): 'Seven.'
Seven? But James ... that's good, at least for you.'
Yes,' Joyce said, finally looking up. 'I suppose it is ... but I don't know what order they go in! ~ Stephen King

What can I be thinking of? Just imagine my not having presented myself to you even yet! But as a matter of fact I do not want to tell you my name
out loud; it is a romantic one, utterly inappropriate to the typically modern environment in which we now stand. Ah,
if we were only on the steep side of some mountain with the moon like a great lamp above us, or by the shore of
some wild ocean, there would be some glamour in proclaiming my identity in the silence of the night, or in the midst of lightning and thunder as a hurricane swept the seas! But here in a third-floor suite of the Royal Palace
Hotel, surrounded by telephones and electric lights, and standing by a window overlooking the Champs Elysees-> it would be positively anachronistic!" He took a card out of his pocket and drew near the little writing desk. "Allow me, Princess, to slip my card into this drawer, left open on purpose, it would seem," and while the princess uttered a little cry she could not repress, he did just that. "And now, Princess," he went on, compelling her to retreat before him as he moved to the door of the anteroom opening on to the corridor, "you are too well bred, I am sure, not to wish to conduct your visitor to the door of your suite." His tone altered abruptly, and in a deep imperious voice that made the princess quake he ordered her: "And now, not a word, not a cry, not a movement until I am outside, or I will kill you! ~ Marcel Allain

Why is a raven like a writing desk? You see, they can each produce a few notes. Though admittedly, the notes tend to be very flat. ~ Marissa Meyer

You do realize that you just left the writing desk behind to sit on the floor." Vin looked up. "And?" "The purpose of a writing desk is, well, writing." "But my papers are all over here." "Papers can be moved, I believe. If they prove too heavy, you could always burn pewter to give yourself more strength. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra - they'll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even. I am one of those. My writing desk is covered in open novels. I read lines to swim in a certain sensibility, to strike a particular note, to encourage rigour when I'm too sentimental, to bring verbal ease when I'm syntactically uptight. I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka, as roughage. If your aesthetic has become so refined it is stopping you from placing a single black mark on white paper, stop worrying so much about what Nabokov would say; pick up Dostoyevsky, patron saint of substance over style. ~ Zadie Smith

An isolated system or a system in a uniform environment (which for the present consideration we do best to include as a part of the system we contemplate) increases its entropy and more or less rapidly approaches the inert state of maximum entropy. We now recognize this fundamental law of physics to be just the natural tendency of things to approach the chaotic state (the same tendency that the books of a library or the piles of papers and manuscripts on a writing desk display) unless we obviate it. (The analogue of irregular heat motion, in this case, is our handling those objects now and again without troubling to put them back in their proper places.) ~ Erwin Schrodinger

Good evening," said the barman. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" "Because Poe wrote on both? ~ Jasper Fforde

According to St. Augustine, the left hand represented the temporal, the mortal, and the bodily, as opposed to the right, which stood for "God, eternity, the years of God which fail not."25 For centuries the preference for the right hand over the left governed how people fished, ploughed fields, twisted rope, and ate their meals. The Greeks and Romans, for example, always reclined on the left side, propped on the left elbow, leaving the right hand free for the business of eating and drinking. Plutarch noted that parents taught children to eat right-handed from a young age, and "if they do put forth the left hand, at once we correct them."26 The prejudice against the left hand persisted during the Renaissance, with parents freeing a child's right hand from its swaddling clothes to ensure right-handedness at the dinner table as well as at the writing desk. ~ Ross King

Mad Hatter: "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"
"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
"No, I give it up," Alice replied: "What's the answer?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter ~ Lewis Carroll

WRITER'S NIGHTMARE"

"I felt a grip on my arm that shook my body, forcefully pulling me toward a tunnel of darkness. The threat of consciousness stole my steady breath. For a moment I believed myself to be under siege; ripped from the sky in mid flight, my wings useless against the monstrous claws shredding my reality. I struggled to remain, to be left alone, aloft. Reaching with wings that through the power of imagination were suddenly feathered arms, I grabbed at the air. My hands clutched at something solid. Wooden. A desk. My head spun as I held the furniture, suffering the illusion of falling.

"I was flying," I gasped, realizing suddenly that it had all been a dream. "My best fantasy ever."

Lifting my head from its resting spot on the writing desk, I worked mentally to secure the fading images, hoping to capture their essence to memory before they faded away forever. Bitterness tainted my heart against the hand that had jerked me into sensibility. Why was I always so callously awakened while doing my best work? Why not let me dream? ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

And then, 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' Those things just became so important to the character. You realize that the more you read it, if I read the book again today, I'd find 100 other things that I missed last time. It's a constantly changing book. ~ Johnny Depp

You want to hear a riddle, you say? I know a very good one. It begins, why is a raven like a writing desk?'
She lifted her chin. 'Have you gone mad, Hatta? I can't seem to tell.'
'They are both so full of poetry, you see. Darkness and whimsy, nightmares and song. ~ Marissa Meyer

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"
"Come, we shall have some fun now!", thought Alice. "I'm glad they've begun asking riddles - I believe I can guess that," she added aloud.
"Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" said the March Hare.
"Exactly so," said Alice.
"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.
"I do," Alice hastily replied; "At least - at least I mean what I say - that's the same thing, you know."
"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. "Why, you might just as well said that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!".
"You might just as well say," added the March Hare, "that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!".
"You might just as well say," added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, "that "I breath when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breath"!".
"It is the same thing with you," said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much. ~ Lewis Carroll

When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. I think it's a wonderful way to spend one's life. ~ Erica Jong

A book calls for pen, ink, and a writing desk; today the rule is that pen, ink, and a writing desk call for a book. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Why is a raven like a writing desk? - Mad Hatter I haven't the slightest idea. - Alice ~ Lewis Carroll

I have never found, in anything outside of the four walls of my study, an enjoyment equal to sitting at my writing desk with a clean page, a new theme, and a mind awake. ~ Washington Irving

I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study. ~ Erica Jong

Have you thrown 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' at her yet? ~ Elle Lothlorien

I went to the trash pile at Tuskegee Institute and started my laboratory with bottles, old fruit jars and any other thing I found I could use ... [The early efforts were] worked out almost wholly on top of my flat topped writing desk and with teacups, glasses, bottles and reagents I made myself. ~ George Washington Carver

Gwen has never been so frightened in her life. There's some comfort in knowing that the others are out here with her, even if she can't see them. It's like she's alone in a dark void. She can't bear to think about David, what the gunshots might mean. Is someone else dead? She wonders if soon there will be no one left at all. She wants to live, but she hopes that if she has to die, she isn't the last one. She doesn't think she could bear it. She is defenseless. She thinks of the small, sharp letter opener that had been lying on the writing desk in their room. She wishes she had it with her now. ~ Shari Lapena

Gradually I find that my whole soul is merging itself into this business of writing, and especially of writing poetry. I am going to try it; and am going to test, in the most rigid way I know, the awful question whether it is my vocation. ~ Sidney Lanier

Only the blank page needs no editing. ~ Marty Rubin

Writing's not precious to me. It's not a thing that requires specific environment. You know, it's my job. Just like anybody with a job, you have to do your job when you don't feel like it, regardless of how good or bad the conditions are, regardless of how good or bad you might feel on any particular day. ~ James Frey

I ask of writing what I ask of desire: that it have no relation to the logic which puts desire on the side of possession, of acquisition, or even of that consumption-consummation which, when pushed to its limits with such exultation, links (false) consciousness with death ~ Helene Cixous

Don't be didactic - don't write about poverty. Write about poor people. When you dramatize their lives and let life and characters be your inspiration, you will express the 'idea' dynamically and without preaching. ~ Robert McKee

If I'm going through something, I paint through it. It's very physical. I'm writing, I'm thinking, I'm meditating, I'm moving, I'm jumping off ladders, and it's therapeutic. ~ Jose Parla

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said,
"It made a difference for that one. ~ Loren Eiseley

I don't know if I learned anything new from this journey, but I now had a beautiful and peaceful vision of the kind of balance I wanted in my life. To be able to move calmly and peacefully from one thing to the next, each in its own time, without the pressure of other responsibilities pushing in on me. And always writing, in and around and among everything else, always writing. I loved her sense of purpose and awareness of the spirit in all things. She honors all things. And she has a purpose in the words she spreads, certain words for certain people, and she watches, and she celebrates the blossoming that comes from her words. She has a rhythm for her everyday life which is productive and intentional, measured and life-giving. ~ Marge Hulburt

I think being a woman and writing frankly about violence has gotten me some attention, and as someone who wants people to read my books, I can't complain about that attention, but it does puzzle me that this is something reviewers focus on. ~ Karin Slaughter

Be confident and stop worrying ~ Chantel C.

If you want your name to be remembered after your death either do something worth writing or write some thing worth reading ~ Abraham Lincoln

Settings are obviously important - and as a writer, you have to respect what was real at the time of the story you're writing. But the real key to success lies in finding the right characters to carry that story. ~ Joan Lingard

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.
- Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library ~ Phillip Lopate

Jury trials are really nothing more than poorly written stage plays. You've got two authors writing opposing narratives and a director who is paid not to care about either outcome. Hired actors sit on either end of the stage, while unwitting audience members strive to remain quiet. No applause should be rendered, no gasps of glory. Witnesses sit agape with fury as they stumble across their rehearsed lines. If only they had practiced just once more. If only they had more time or a dress rehearsal, then they would recite their packaged words with such eloquent delivery that the critics in the jury box would believe only them. ~ Elizabeth L. Silver

Better to work for yourself alone. You do as you like and follow your own ideas, you admire yourself and please yourself: isn't that the main thing? And then the public is so stupid. Besides, who reads? And what do they read? And what do they admire? ~ Gustave Flaubert

That's the thing that I've always kind of kept in the back of my head in writing about teens, that everything is so important, all the time, every day. Every day of your life, you're changing and making decisions and everything is an emergency to you. ~ Jason Katims

Application, resignation, and chance had gone into the writing; I saw, however, that Daneri's real work lay not in the poetry but in his invention of reasons why the poetry should be admired. Of course, this second phase of his effort modified the writing in his eyes, though not in the eyes of others. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Don't use pencil, for writing on your lover's heart it might erase. Always use ball point pen. ~ Biranchi Narayan

If you aren't writing perfection, don't stop and hope tomorrow's is better. Write what you have today, and let it ferment into perfection later. ~ Nicholas May

His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language. ~ Oscar Wilde

I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic. Inspiration is better when you can get it. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

I feel very privileged to get to read and write and not to have to do things that I don't like, and I don't want to give that up. Everything else is just a bonus and often a distraction from the writing, reading, and traveling that gives me the most pleasure. ~ Pankaj Mishra

I did write some code in Java once, but that was the island in Indonesia. ~ Richard Stallman

The article was written in scraps of time, between snatched moments of sleep. This can't be normal, she thought, exhilarated, typing away in her slip at three in the morning. She'd been brought up to believe in regular work that took place in nice, clean offices, between fixed hours. Yet here she was, in a hotel room that could be anywhere, weaving a story into being and feeling like if she stopped for a second to breathe, the whole thing would fall apart. As long as she got the next sentence out, and the one after that, she'd be all right. ~ Jeremy Tiang

There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all. ~ Stephen King

Fire wouldn't burn he; blade wouldn't cut her, no matter how long we hacked away. ~ Naomi Novik

I usually start writing a novel that I then abandon. When I say abandon, I don't think any writer ever abandons anything that they regard as even a half-good sentence. So you recycle. I mean, I can hang on to a sentence for several years and then put it into a book that's completely different from the one it started in. ~ Kate Atkinson

Details are where a theory can be held together or fall apart. The same is true about a plot. ~ Sarah Richards

Writers are never fully present because they're always imagining a different version of the way things are happening; imagining the past in a different way, imagining the present in a different way, imagining the future in a different way. ~ Jessica Soffer

Writing jokes for others is like having babies for someone else. It's sad. Like the woman who gives up her baby but needs to be close so she secretly becomes the maid in the household. ~ Emo Philips

You were too young back then to understand how much you would later forget - and too locked in the present to realize that the person you were writing to was in fact your future self. So you put down the journal, and little by little, over the course of the next forty-seven years, almost everything was lost. ~ Paul Auster

What's really fun is to write under different names. ~ Tom Verlaine

A vacation for me is when I'm home and I'm writing. ~ Mary Pope Osborne