316 quotes found
Writer · English · 1959
English writer (born 1959)
“I have ridden out all the storms, said Shakespeare, even the ones I wrote myself. Here, look, it begins”
“Shakespeare shook his head and sunk his chin into his ruff, making him look more owl-like than ever. I have written about other worlds often enough. I have said what I can say. There are many kinds...”
“Shakespeare, he thought as he scribbled away. Foolish fancy. This is life as it is lived.”
“Art is enchantment and artists have the right of spells. ... The success of later Shakespeare is the success of spells, where every element, however uneven, however incredible, is fastened to the n...”
“There is always a city. There is always a civilization. There is always a barbarian with a pickaxe. Sometimes you are the city, sometimes you are the civilization, but to become that city, that civ...”
“There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.”
“The librarian was explaining the benefits of the Dewey decimal system to her juniorbenefits that extended to every area of life. It was orderly, like the universe. It had logic. It was dependable. ...”
“What is luck', he said, 'but the ability to exploit accidents?”
“There's no such thing as a limited victory. Every victory leaves another resentment, another defeated and humiliated people. Another place to guard and defend and fear.”
“The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down.”
“I believe in communication books communicate ideas and make bridges between people. ”
“I live alone, with cats, books, pictures, fresh vegetables to cook, the garden, the hens to feed.”
“The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home.”
“The winged word. The mercurial word. The word that is both moth and lamp. The word that is itself and more. the associative word light with meanings. The word not netted by meaning. The exact word ...”
“Bigger questions, questions with more than one answer, questions without an answer are the hardest to cope with in silence. Once asked they do not evaporate and leave the mind to its serener musing...”
“You are still the colour of my blood. You are my blood. When I look in the mirror its not my own face I see. Your body is twice. Once you once me. Can I be sure which is which?”
“We were the lucky ones, the notthese, we were the ones who had survived the aerial bombing and fire-clusters, the final flash. Regrettable, unavoidable, a war to end all wars, a war for democracy, ...”
“gifts that strange word, a signifier meaning disappointment you can hold in your hands.”
“Why doesn't she want me? The sun is rising now, but it is 93,000,000 miles away and I can't get warm... She won't be cold. She has the sun inside her.”
“She was fragile, gentle, wide awake in a sleeping world.”
