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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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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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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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Anne Tyler: I didn't really...

Anne Tyler: I didn't really...

I didn't really choose to be a writer; I more or less fell into it.

Source: A...

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Anne Tyler: II would advise...

Anne Tyler: II would advise...

II would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them -- without a...

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Willa Cather: To note an...

Willa Cather: To note an...

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent.

Source: Not Under...

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Martha Carey Thomas: One thing I...

Martha Carey Thomas: One thing I...

One thing I am determined on is that by the time I die my brain shall weigh as much as a man's if study and learning...

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Beatrix Potter: I am worn...

Beatrix Potter: I am worn...

I am worn to a raveling.

Source: The Tailor of Gloucester, 1901.
-- Beatrix...

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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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Elizabeth Bowen: No object is...

Elizabeth Bowen: No object is...

No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.

Source: The House in Paris,...

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Elizabeth Bowen: I suppose art...

Elizabeth Bowen: I suppose art...

I suppose art is the only thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting.

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Annie Dillard: I woke in...

Annie Dillard: I woke in...

I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and...

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Natalie Clifford Barney: Why grab possessions...

Natalie Clifford Barney: Why grab possessions...

Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise...

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Nora Ephron: We have lived...

Nora Ephron: We have lived...

We have lived through the era when happiness was a warm puppy, and the era when happiness was a dry martini, and now...

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Kate Seredy: [My stories were]...

Kate Seredy: [My stories were]...

[My stories were] an excuse for making pictures.

Source:...

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Madeleine L'Engle: It is the...

Madeleine L'Engle: It is the...

It is the ability to choose which makes us human.

Source: Walking on Water:...

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Louisa May Alcott: It takes two...

Louisa May Alcott: It takes two...

It takes two flints to make a fire.

Source: Little Women, 1868.
-- Louisa May...

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Edna Ferber: Life can't ever...

Edna Ferber: Life can't ever...

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death --...

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Grandma Moses: . . ....

Grandma Moses: . . ....

. . . daydreams, as it were . . . I look out the window sometimes to seek the color of the shadows and the different...

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Grandma Moses: Life is what...

Grandma Moses: Life is what...

Life is what we make it; always has been, always will be.

Source: In Words of Women...

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