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Djuna Barnes: Life, the permission...

Djuna Barnes: Life, the permission...

Life, the permission to know death.

Source: Nightwood/ 1937
-- Djuna Barnes,...

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Elizabeth Gaskell: People may flatter...

Elizabeth Gaskell: People may flatter...

People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds,...

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Katherine Anne Porter: You have to...

Katherine Anne Porter: You have to...

You have to speak clearly and simply and purely in a language that a six-year-old child can understand; and yet have...

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Sylvia Ashton-Warner: God, the illogic!...

Sylvia Ashton-Warner: God, the illogic!...

God, the illogic! The impossibility of communication in this house. The sheer operation alone of getting something...

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Alexandra Ripley: We're not home-and-hearth...

Alexandra Ripley: We're not home-and-hearth...

We're not home-and-hearth people. We're the adventurers, the buccaneers, the blockade runners. Without challenge,...

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Fay Weldon: The New Women!...

Fay Weldon: The New Women!...

The New Women! I could barely recognize them as being of the same sex as myself . . . .They are satiated by...

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Anzia Yezierska: The real thing...

Anzia Yezierska: The real thing...

The real thing creates its own poetry.

Source: Red Ribbon on a White Horse,...

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Daphne DuMaurier: Writers should be...

Daphne DuMaurier: Writers should be...

Writers should be read -- but neither seen nor heard.

Source: In The Speaker's...

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Madeleine L'Engle: Artistic temperament ....

Madeleine L'Engle: Artistic temperament ....

Artistic temperament . . . sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of...

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Madeleine L'Engle: A book comes...

Madeleine L'Engle: A book comes...

A book comes and says, Write me. My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough,...

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Madeleine L'Engle: No matter how...

Madeleine L'Engle: No matter how...

No matter how true I believe I am writing to be, if the reader cannot also participate in that truth, then I have...

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Madeleine L'Engle: When I am...

Madeleine L'Engle: When I am...

When I am grappling with ideas which are radical enough to upset grown-ups, then I am likely to put these ideas into a...

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Eleanor Roosevelt: When you cease...

Eleanor Roosevelt: When you cease...

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

Source: letter to Mr....

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Ann Richards: There is a...

Ann Richards: There is a...

There is a lot more to life than just struggling to make money.

Source: CBS -...

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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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Pearl Buck: Be born anywhere,...

Pearl Buck: Be born anywhere,...

Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden...

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Agatha Christie: We owe most...

Agatha Christie: We owe most...

We owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness-either enforced or...

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Margery Allingham: Chemists employed by...

Margery Allingham: Chemists employed by...

Chemists employed by the police can do remarkable things with blood. They can . . . weave it into a rope to hang a...

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Emily Bronte: I'll walk where...

Emily Bronte: I'll walk where...

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading-
It vexes me to choose another guide.


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Pearl Buck: Ah well, perhaps...

Pearl Buck: Ah well, perhaps...

Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than...

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