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Shirley Hazzard: It's a nervous...

Shirley Hazzard: It's a nervous...

It's a nervous work. The state that you need to write is the state that others are paying large sums to get rid...

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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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Barbara De Angelis: We need to...

Barbara De Angelis: We need to...

We need to find the courage to say NO to the things and people that are not serving us if we want to rediscover...

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Annie Dillard: You can't test...

Annie Dillard: You can't test...

You can't test courage cautiously.

Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, ch. 6,...

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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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Lydia M Child: Every human being...

Lydia M Child: Every human being...

Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not...

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Estelle Ramey: I don't mind...

Estelle Ramey: I don't mind...

I don't mind . . . the fun and games of being treated like a fragile flower. But as a physiologist working with the...

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Jane Austen: Business, you know,...

Jane Austen: Business, you know,...

Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.

Source: Emma,...

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Jane Rule: I had never...

Jane Rule: I had never...

I had never been as resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't...

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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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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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Willa Cather: Art should simplify....

Willa Cather: Art should simplify....

Art should simplify. That is very nearly the whole of the higher artistic process; finding what conventions of form...

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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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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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Angela Carter: I think the...

Angela Carter: I think the...

I think the adjective post-modernist really means mannerist. Books about books is fun but...

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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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Ninon de Lenclos: A man is...

Ninon de Lenclos: A man is...

A man is given the choice between loving women and understanding them.

Source: In...

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Nancy Astor: From the American...

Nancy Astor: From the American...

From the American newspapers you'd think America was populated solely by naked women and cinema...

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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: No; we have...

Annie Dillard: No; we have...

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is...

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