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Djuna Barnes: Dreams have only...

Djuna Barnes: Dreams have only...

Dreams have only the pigmentation of fact.

Source: Doctor, in Nightwood, ch. 5,...

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Willa Cather: Winter lies too...

Willa Cather: Winter lies too...

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and...

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Gail Godwin: Good teaching is...

Gail Godwin: Good teaching is...

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.

Source: The Odd...

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Gayl Jones: When you tell...

Gayl Jones: When you tell...

When you tell a story you automatically talk about traditions, but they're never separate from the people, the human...

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Gayl Jones: I believe that...

Gayl Jones: I believe that...

I believe that all literatures can have political uses and misuses. Sometimes politics can enhance, sometimes it can...

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Anne Sophie Swetchine: In order to...

Anne Sophie Swetchine: In order to...

In order to have an enemy, one must be somebody. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force. A...

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Lillian Smith: When you stop...

Lillian Smith: When you stop...

When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to...

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Gloria Naylor: I don't believe...

Gloria Naylor: I don't believe...

I don't believe that life is supposed to make you feel good, or make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed...

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Marguerite Duras: The best way...

Marguerite Duras: The best way...

The best way to fill time is to waste it.

Source: Practicalities, Wasting Time,...

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Harper Lee: Shoot all the...

Harper Lee: Shoot all the...

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a...

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Jane Austen: A single woman...

Jane Austen: A single woman...

A single woman with a narrow income must be a ridiculous old maid, the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single...

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Mary Roberts Rinehart: Men deceive themselves;...

Mary Roberts Rinehart: Men deceive themselves;...

Men deceive themselves; they look back on the children who were once themselves, and attempt to reconstruct them. But...

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Flannery O'Connor: Everywhere I go...

Flannery O'Connor: Everywhere I go...

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of...

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Iris Murdoch: All artists dream...

Iris Murdoch: All artists dream...

All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to...

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Colette: It is wise...

Colette: It is wise...

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship.

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Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: Of all the...

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: Of all the...

Of all the inventions that have helped to unify China perhaps the airplane is the most outstanding. Its ability to...

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Pearl Buck: No one really...

Pearl Buck: No one really...

No one really understood music unless he was a scientist, her father had declared, and not just a scientist, either,...

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Annie Dillard: I woke at...

Annie Dillard: I woke at...

I woke at intervals until . . . the intervals of waking tipped the scales, and I was more often awake than...

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Agatha Christie: I've always believed...

Agatha Christie: I've always believed...

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each...

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E L Konigsburg: Lying in bed...

E L Konigsburg: Lying in bed...

Lying in bed just before going to sleep is the worst time for organized thinking; it is the best time for free...

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