Chapters Quotes - Page 24

• My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying . . . one must ruthlessly suppress everything that is not concerned with the subject. If, in the first chapter, you say there is a gun hanging on the wall, you should make quite sure that it is going to be used further on in the story.

  Anton Chekhov

  Wall, Lying, Gun

  9 Copy quote

• Books are influential in proportion to their obscurity, provided that the obscurity be that of inexpressible Realities. The Bible is the most obscure book in the world. He must be a great fool who thinks he understands the plainest chapter of it.

  Coventry Patmore

  Book, Reality, Thinking

  Coventry Patmore (2016). “The Root, the Rod and the Flower”, p.23, Lulu Press, Inc

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We Americans write our own history. And the chapters of which we're proudest are the ones where we had the courage to change. Time and again, Americans have seen the need for change, and have taken the initiative to bring that change to life.

  Al Gore

  Taken, Writing, Needs

  Al Gore's Speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, www.nytimes.com. August 29, 1996.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I once started a detective story to make money—but I couldn't get the murder to take place! At the end of three chapters I was still describing the characters and the milieu, so I thought, this is not going to work. No corpse!

  Mary McCarthy

  Character, Three, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• I don't see how anybody starts a novel without knowing how it's going to end. I usually make detailed outlines: how many chapters it will be and so forth.

  John Barth

  Knowing, Ends, Novel

  6 Copy quote

• There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless. A philosophical doctrine begins as a plausible description of the universe; with the passage of the years it becomes a mere chapter if not a paragraph or a name in the history of philosophy.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Exercise

  Jorge Luis Borges (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.43, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've come to realize that however blue my circumstances, if after finishing a chapter of a Dickens novel I feel a miss-my-stop-on-the-train sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be just fine.

  Amor Towles

  Blue, Missing, Finishing

  Amor Towles (2011). “Rules of Civility”, p.98, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Although I will deeply miss the talented team at SCEA and the passion demonstrated every day by our fans, I'm very excited about starting the next chapter of my career. I want to thank the employees, partners, and customers for their tireless commitment to the PlayStation brand and, of course, to our fans who have pushed us to new heights of innovation and entertainment over the past two decades. I leave PlayStation in a position of considerable strength and the future will only get brighter for PlayStation Nation.

  Jack Tretton

  Team, Passion, Commitment

  "Jack Tretton To Step Down As President And CEO Of Sony Computer Entertainment America". Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., www.prnewswire.com. March 06, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm starting a new chapter in my [[life], and you have no idea how much that means.

  Christopher Reeve

  Mean, Ideas, Starting

  4 Copy quote

• Great men are the inspired texts of that divine Book of Revelations, whereof a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named History.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Book, Men, History

  Thomas Carlyle (1846). “On Heroes, Hero-worship, & the Heroic in History: Six Lectures ; Reported, with Emendations and Additions”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are an unfortunate priest-ridden race and always were and always will be tell the end of the chapter.... A priest-ridden Godforsaken race.

  James Joyce

  Race, Ends, Priests

  4 Copy quote

• So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.

  Barack Obama

  Writing, Destiny, Opportunity

  "The Action Americans Need". www.washingtonpost.com. February 5, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are . Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.

  Mark Twain

  Hurt, Doe, Jam

  Mark Twain (2010). “Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1: The Complete and Authoritative Edition”, p.8, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I go through the text making sure I haven't used any big words. If I find any fancy adjectives have crept in, I replace them with small words like 'nice' and 'big'. I've liked these words ever since I was told not to use them in English class at school. After that, I check that the sentences are short so as people won't get confused and I shorten all the chapters so they won't get bored. I can't read anything complicated these days, my attention span is too short. Everyone else probably feels the same.

  Martin Millar

  Confused, Nice, School

  4 Copy quote

• Now that I'm experiencing motherhood, I'm ready to write the next chapter of my family story. Of course a few jaded folks in the press corps will claim I ran out of money or just want to kiss John Corbett again. One of these things is true.

  Nia Vardalos

  Writing, Kissing, Motherhood

  "Nia Vardalos and John Corbett Will Return for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" by Brian Gallagher, movieweb.com. May 27, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• From the moment I start a new novel, life's just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there's still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied.

  Emile Zola

  Feelings, Firsts, May

  10 Copy quote

• I wanted to make sure the last chapters of my life were full, and painting, it turns out, has helped occupy not only space but opened my mind.

  George W. Bush

  Space, Mind, Lasts

  7 Copy quote

• A novelist must know what his last chapter is going to say and one way or another work toward that last chapter. ... To me it is utterly basic, yet it seems like it's a great secret.

  Leon Uris

  Secret, Novelists, Way

  8 Copy quote

• If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing.

  David Stockman

  Cutting, Republican, Politician

  "Four deformations of the Apocalypse" by David Stockman, www.nytimes.com. July 31, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.

  Sarah Orne Jewett

  Eye, Aging, Natural

  Sarah Orne Jewett (2016). “The Country of the Pointed Firs”, p.114, Sarah Orne Jewett

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When you are reading a book and you finish a chapter, you don’t keep re-reading the chapter you just finished. You move on to the next chapter to see what happens.

  Stephen Reid

  Moving, Book, Reading

  5 Copy quote

• Saigon, U.S.A. aptly documents the birth of a new American community, uprooted in the aftermath of war and forever torn apart by the wounds of the past, yet one capable of healing against all odds. An engrossing yet succinct film that captures not only a major incident in Vietnamese American life, but also an important chapter of American history. A profound film that manages to confront us with the deepest sorrow while allowing us to be hopeful about what it means to be human.

  Nguyen Qui Duc

  War, Healing, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• Attention spans are changing. It's very noticeable. I am very aware that the kind of books I read in my childhood kids now won't be able to read. I was reading Kipling and PG Wodehouse and Shakespeare at the age of 11. The kind of description and detail I read I would not put in my books. I don't know how much you can fight that because you want children to read. So I pack in excitement and plot and illustrations and have a cliffhanger every chapter. Charles Dickens was doing cliffhangers way back when. But even with all the excitement you have to make children care about the characters.

  Cressida Cowell

  Children, Book, Reading

  8 Copy quote

• Life, individual or collective, personal or historic, is the one entity in the universe whose substance is compact of danger, of adventure. It is, in the strict sense of the word, drama. The primary, radical meaning of life appears when it is employed in the sense not of biology, but of biography. For the very strong reason that the whole of biology is quite definitely only a chapter in certain biographies, it is what biologists do in the portion of their lives open to biography.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Strong, Drama, Adventure

  "The Revolt of the Masses". Book by José Ortega y Gasset. Chapter IX: "The Primitive and the Technical", 1929.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The book [ A Passage to India ] shows signs of fatigue and disillusionment; but it has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it makes us wonder, what will he write next?

  E. M. Forster

  Book, Writing, India

  4 Copy quote