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Djuna Barnes: New York is...

Djuna Barnes: New York is...

New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical...

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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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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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Nadine Gordimer: The gap between...

Nadine Gordimer: The gap between...

The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind's eye only,...

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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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Susan Warner: Many a bit...

Susan Warner: Many a bit...

Many a bit we passed in our ignorance, in the days when we could see no metal but what glittered on the surface . ....

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Toni Morrison: Her mind traveled...

Toni Morrison: Her mind traveled...

Her mind traveled crooked streets and aimless goat paths, arriving sometimes at profundity, other times at the...

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Toni Morrison: If there's a...

Toni Morrison: If there's a...

If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write...

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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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Tillie Olsen: Time granted does...

Tillie Olsen: Time granted does...

Time granted does not necessarily coincide with time that can be most fully used.

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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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Betty Smith: There's a tree...

Betty Smith: There's a tree...

There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it...

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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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Louisa May Alcott: It takes people...

Louisa May Alcott: It takes people...

It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and...

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George Eliot: Excellence encourages one...

George Eliot: Excellence encourages one...

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the...

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Gloria Naylor: Spoiled. That's all...

Gloria Naylor: Spoiled. That's all...

Spoiled. That's all it's about -- can't live without this, can't live without that. You can live without anything you...

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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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Marguerite Duras: Nowhere is one...

Marguerite Duras: Nowhere is one...

Nowhere is one more alone than in Paris. . . and yet surrounded by crowds. Nowhere is one more likely to incur greater...

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Carson McCullers: Our hunger for...

Carson McCullers: Our hunger for...

Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us [Americans] almost like a national disease. Our literature...

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