Literature

"See it be wrought on one consistent plan, And end the same creation it began."

"Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons."

"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."

"Of writing well be sure the secret lies In wisdom: therefore study to be wise."

"Scribentem juvat ipse favor, minuitque laborem, Cumque suo crescens pectore fervet opus."

"Where’er you find ‘the cooling western breeze,’ In the next line, it ‘whispers thro’ the trees;’ If crystal streams ‘with pleasing murmurs creep,’ The reader’s threaten’d (not in vain) with ‘sleep;’ Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."

"A clean tablet, one from which the writing has been erased. A blank sheet of paper. A clean slate."

"Multa quidem scripsi: sed que vitiosa putavi Emendaturis ignibus ipse dedi."

"Et in Arcadia ego."

"Even in Arcadia, there am I [i.e. Death]"

"In time of yore when shepherds dwelt Upon the mountain rocks, And simple people never felt The pain of lovers’ mocks; But little birds would carry tales ’Twixt Susan and her sweeting, And all the dainty nightingales Did sing at lovers’ meeting: Then might you see what looks did pass Where shepherds did assemble, And where the life of true love was When hearts could not dissemble.Then yea and nay was thought an oath That was not to be doubted, And when it came to faith and troth We were not to be flouted. Then did they talk of curds and cream, Of butter, cheese and milk; There was no speech of sunny beam Nor of the golden silk. Then for a gift a row of pins, A purse, a pair of knives, Was all the way that love begins; And so the shepherd wives.But now we have so much ado, And are so sore aggrievèd, That when we go about to woo We cannot be believèd; Such choice of jewels, rings and chains, That may but favour move, And such intolerable pains Ere one can hit on love; That if I still shall bide this life ’Twixt love and deadly hate, I will go learn the country life Or leave the lover’s state."

"Polonius: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men."

"O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!"

"Underlying all their complexity, traditional American Indian literatures possess a unity and harmony of symbol, structure, and articulation that is peculiar to the American Indian world. This harmony is based on the perceived harmony of the universe and on thousands of years of refinement. This essential sense of unity among all things flows like a clear stream through the songs and stories of the peoples of the western hemisphere. [...] It remains for scholars of American Indian literature to look at this literature from the point of view of its people. Only from this vantage can we understand fully the richness, complexity, and true meaning of a people’s life; only in this way can we all learn the lessons of the past on this continent and the essential lesson of respect for all that is."

"Those reared in traditional American Indian societies are inclined to relate events and experiences to one another. They do not organize perceptions or external events in terms of dualities or priorities. This egalitarianism is reflected in the structure of American Indian literature, which does not rely on conflict, crisis, and resolution for organization, nor does its merit depend on the parentage, education, or connections of the author. Rather, its significance is determined by its relation to creative empowerment, its reflection of tribal understandings, and its relation to the unitary nature of reality."

"The two forms basic to American Indian literature are the ceremony and the myth. The ceremony is the ritual enactment of a specialized perception of a cosmic relationship, while the myth is a prose record of that relationship. [...] The formal structure of a ceremony is as holistic as the universe it purports to reflect and respond to, for the ceremony contains other forms such as incantation, song (dance), and prayer, and it is itself the central mode of literary expression from which all allied songs and stories derive. The Lakota view all the ceremonies as related to one another in various explicit and implicit ways, as though each were one face of a multifaceted prism. This interlocking of the basic forms has led to much confusion among non-Indian collectors and commentators, and this complexity makes all simplistic treatments of American Indian literature more confusing than helpful. Indeed, the non-Indian tendency to separate things from one another—be they literary forms, species, or persons—causes a great deal of unnecessary difficulty with and misinterpretation of American Indian life and culture. It is reasonable, from an Indian point of view, that all literary forms should be interrelated, given the basic idea of the unity and relatedness of all the phenomena of life. Separation of parts into this or that category is not agreeable to American Indians, and the attempt to separate essentially unified phenomena results in distortion."

"The tribes seek—through song, ceremony, legend, sacred stories (myths), and tales—to embody, articulate, and share reality, to bring the isolated, private self into harmony and balance with this reality, to verbalize the sense of the majesty and reverent mystery of all things, and to actualize, in language, those truths that give to humanity its greatest significance and dignity. To a large extent, ceremonial literature serves to redirect private emotion and integrate the energy generated by emotion within a cosmic framework. The artistry of the tribes is married to the essence of language itself, for through language one can share one’s singular being with that of the community and know within oneself the communal knowledge of the tribe. In this art, the greater self and all-that-is are blended into a balanced whole, and in this way the concept of being that is the fundamental and sacred spring of life is given voice and being for all."

"There is such a thing as American Indian literature, and it can be divided into several interlocking categories. The major divisions are traditional literature and genre literature of the present. Traditional literature can be further divided into ceremonial and popular varieties—that is, into canonical works and those that derive from the canon but that are widely told and appeal to audiences gathered on social occasions. Contemporary works, or genre literature, can be divided into the classic western categories of poetry, short fiction, the novel, and drama, with the addition of autobiography, as-told-to narrative, and mixed genre works. Structural and thematic elements from the oral tradition, usually from the writer’s own tribe, always show up in contemporary works by American Indians, and elements from contemporary, non-Indian works sometimes show up in contemporaneous tribal social literature."

"Native American literature should be important to Americans not as a curio, an artifact of the American past that has little pertinence to an American present or future, but rather as a major tradition that informs American writers ranging from Cotton Mather and Nathaniel Hawthorne through Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and William Faulkner to Adrienne Rich, Toni Cade Bambara, and Judy Grahn."

"The great mythic and ceremonial cycles of the American Indian peoples are neither primitive, in any meaningful sense of the word, nor necessarily the province of the folk; much of the literature, in fact, is known only to educated, specialized persons who are privy to the philosophical, mystical, and literary wealth of their own tribe. Much of the literature that was in the keeping of such persons, engraved perfectly and completely in their memories, was not known to most other men and women. Because of this, much literature has been lost as the last initiates of particular tribes and societies within the tribes died, leaving no successors."

"The whole body of American Indian literature, from its traditional, ceremonial aspects to its formal literary aspects, forms a field, or, we might say, a hoop dance, and as such is a dynamic, vital whole whose different expressions refer to a tradition that is unified and coherent on its own terms. It is a literary tradition that is breathtaking in its aesthetic realization and fundamental to coherent understanding of non-Indian varieties of American literature."

"So Hector spake; and Trojans roar’d applause; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine And bread from out the houses brought, and heap’d Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain Roll’d the rich vapor far into the heaven. And these all night upon the bridge of war Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed: As when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart: So many a fire between the ships and stream Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, A thousand on the plain; and close by each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds, Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn."

"So saying, light-foot Iris pass’d away. Then rose Achilles dear to Zeus; and round The warrior’s puissant shoulders Pallas flung Her fringèd ægis, and around his head The glorious goddess wreath’d a golden cloud, And from it lighted an all-shining flame. As when a smoke from a city goes to heaven Far off from out an island girt by foes, All day the men contend in grievous war From their own city, and with set of sun Their fires flame thickly, and aloft the glare Flies streaming, if perchance the neighbours round May see, and sail to help them in the war; So from his head the splendour went to heaven. From wall to dyke he stept, he stood, nor join’d The Achaeans—honouring his wise mother’s word— There standing, shouted; Pallas far away Call’d; and a boundless panic shook the foe. For like the clear voice when a trumpet shrills, Blown by the fierce beleaguerers of a town, So rang the clear voice of Æakidês; And when the brazen cry of Æakidês Was heard among the Trojans, all their hearts Were troubled, and the full-maned horses whirl’d The chariots backward, knowing griefs at hand; And sheer-astounded were the charioteers To see the dread, unweariable fire That always o’er the great Peleion’s head Burnt, for the bright-eyed goddess made it burn. Thrice from the dyke he sent his mighty shout, Thrice backward reel’d the Trojans and allies; And there and then twelve of their noblest died Among their spears and chariots. The Achæans Eagerly dragg’d Patroclus from the fight And laid him on a bier. His friends stood round Weeping, and with them swift Achilles went And shed hot tears, seeing his faithful friend Laid on the litter, pierc’d with sharp-edg’d bronze;— Him had he sent with chariots and horses To war, but never welcomed his return."

"So follow’d, Rustum left his tents, and cross’d The camp, and to the Persian host appear’d. And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts Hail’d; but the Tartars knew not who he was. And dear as the wet diver to the eyes Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, Having made up his tale of precious pearls, Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands— So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. And Rustum to the Persian front advanc’d, And Sohrab arm’d in Haman’s tent, and came. And as afield the reapers cut a swathe Down through the middle of a rich man’s corn, And on each side are squares of standing corn, And in the midst a stubble, short and bare; So on each side were squares of men, with spears Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast His eyes towards the Tartar tents, and saw Sohrab come forth, and ey’d him as he came. As some rich woman, on a winter’s morn, Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge Who with numb blacken’d fingers makes her fire— At cock-crow, on a starlit winter’s morn, When the frost flowers the whiten’d window panes— And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum ey’d The unknown adventurous Youth, who from afar Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth All the most valiant chiefs: long he perus’d His spirited air, and wonder’d who he was. For very young he seem’d, tenderly rear’d; Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, Which in a queen’s secluded garden throws Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, By midnight, to a bubbling fountain’s sound— So slender Sohrab seem’d, so softly rear’d. And a deep pity enter’d Rustum’s soul As he beheld him coming; [...]"

"I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world. …. There is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character."

"Today it’s no secret that movie studios release blockbuster action films to meet the higher energy levels of summer audiences, more intellectual fare for the winter months, and romantic comedies for spring. They don’t do it out of any sense of loyalty to our natural chronobiological rhythms, but because it’s good business."

"Shakespeare, from his very first experiment in the genre, conceived of the love comedy—the romantic comedy—as of something typically Italian, and for this reason he favoured the choice of Italian names for the main characters and, at least in the earliest examples, of Italian locations for the action."

"Romance depends not just on desire and affection but also on isolation from the claims of everyday life. It is on this point that these romantic comedies come closest to fitting the usual definition of the prose romance—as distinguished from the novel—one of the features of which is a setting far removed from everyday life: the forest, the ocean, a desert island, and the like. And yet in the Hollywood comedies I am discussing, most of the action takes place well within everyday settings."

"Even though I enjoy Hollywood romantic comedies like Notting Hill, it’s like they wear galoshes compared to the sly wit of a movie like Autumn Tale. They stomp squishy-footed through their clockwork plots, while Rohmer elegantly seduces us with people who have all of the alarming unpredictability of life. There’s never a doubt that Julia Roberts will live happily ever after. But Magali, now: One wrong step, and she’s alone with her vines forever."

"Romantic comedy was reborn in the films of the 1930s and ’40s. The distinction between a romantic comedy and the modern sense of romance is apparent in a comparison of [Leo McCarey's Love Affair] (1939), which the director remade as An Affair to Remember (1957). Both of these films are unequivocally modern romances, while Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a film that pays extensive homage to An Affair to Remember, is clearly a romantic comedy."

"I call myself a promiscuous spender and I think that caught Harlequin's eye. It's more peer-oriented and not 'ivory tower' talking"

"As President of the Akademi, I may tell you quite frankly that I would not like the Prime Minister to interfere with my work."

"Sahitya Akademi held a place of pride in the world of Indian literature. There was no comparable institution at that time. Every Indian writer wanted to be connected to it in some way or the other."

"I like Sahitya Akademi were not able to live up to the original mandates set out by their founding fathers."

"A great deal of writing is not "plotted"—most of my essays have no plot structure, they are a ramble in the woods, or a ramble in the basement of my mind."

"The river's algorithm is simple. At each step, flow down. For the essayist this translates to: flow interesting. Of all the places to go next, choose the most interesting. One can't have quite as little foresight as a river. I always know generally what I want to write about. But not the specific conclusions I want to reach; from paragraph to paragraph I let the ideas take their course."

"Frequent representations had of late been made to the Lord Mayor, of the alarm excited by a miscreant, who haunted the lanes and lonely places in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, for the purpose of terrifying women and children. For some time these statements were supposed to be greatly exaggerated. However, the matter was put beyond a doubt by the following circumstance. A Mr. Alsop, who residing in Bearbing-lane, a lonely spot between the villages of Bow and Oldford, attended at Lambeth-street office, with his three daughters to state the particulars of an outrageous assault upon one of his daughters, by a fellow who goes by the name of the Suburban ghost, or "spring-heeled Jack." Miss Janes Alsop, one of the young ladies, gave the following evidence. About a quarter to nine o'clock on the preceding night, she heard a violent ringing at the gate in front of the house ; and on going to the door to see what was the matter, she saw a man standing outside ; of whom she inquired what was the matter. The person instantly replied, that he was a policeman ; and said, " For God's sake bring me a light, for we have caught spring-heeled Jack here in the lane." She returned into the house, and brought a candle, and handed it to the person ; who appeared enveloped in a large cloak. The instant she had done so, however, he threw off his outer garment, and applying the lighted candle to his breast, presented a most hideous and frightful appearance, and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth, and his eyes resembled red balls of fire. From the hasty glance which her fright enabled her to get at his person, she observed that he wore a large helmet ; and his dress, which appeared to fit him very tight, seemed to her,toresemble white oilskin. Without uttering a sentence he darted at her, and catching her partly by her dress and the back part of her neck, placed her head under one of his arms, and commenced tearing her gown with his claws, which she was certain were of some metallic substance. She screamed out as loud as she could for assistance ; and by considerable exertion got away from him, and ran towards the house to get in. Her assailant, however, followed her, and caught her on the steps leading to the hall-door ; when he again used considerable violence, tore her neck and arms with his claws, as well as a quantity of hair from her head : but she was at length rescued from his grasp by one of her sisters. Miss Alsop added, that she had suffered considerably all night from the shock she had sustained ; and was then in extreme pain, both from the injury done to her arm, and the wounds and scratches inflicted by the miscreant on her shoulders and neck, with his claws or hands. This story was fully confirmed by Mr. Alsop and his other daughters. One of the daughters said, that the fellow kept knocking and ringing at the gate after she had dragged er sister away from him, but scampered off when she shouted from an upper window for a policeman. He left his cloak behind him ; which some one else picked up, and ran off with."

"During the 1850’s and 60’s Spring-heeled Jack was also seen all over England, particularly in the Midlands. The Army in 1870 set traps to catch him after scared sentries reported being terrified by a man who sprang on to the roof of their sentry box. Also in 1870, angry townsfolk in Lincoln are reported to have shot at him in the street, but he just laughed and bounded away, leaping over fences, and even small buildings!"

"For a while, as no-one really had any idea who he was, suspicion rested on the eccentric young Marquis of Waterford, but he was never vicious, even though he was considered ‘wild’ by Victorian society, and been branded as the ‘Mad Marquis’. Spring-heeled Jack was last seen in 1904 at Everton in Liverpool, bounding up and down the streets, leaping from cobbles to rooftops and back! He vanished into the darkness when some brave souls tried to corner him and he has not been seen since that day to this! The puzzle remains…who was Spring-heeled Jack?"

"The scribe trained in counting is deficient on clay. The scribe skilled with clay is deficient in counting."

"His speech was substantial, and its contents extensive. The messenger, whose mouth was heavy, was not able to repeat it. Because the messenger, whose mouth was tired, was not able to repeat it, the lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message as if on a tablet. Formerly, the writing of messages on clay was not established. Now, under that sun and on that day, it was indeed so. The lord of Kulaba inscribed the message like a tablet. It was just like that."

"At new year, on the day of rites, the lady libates water on the holy. [...] On the day when the bowls of rations are inspected, Nanshe also inspects the servants during the appointments. Her chief scribe Nisaba places the precious tablets on her knees and takes a golden stylus in her hand. [...] The king who always cares for the faithful servants, Haia, the man in charge of registration, registers on a tablet him who is said to be a faithful servant of his lady but deletes from the tablet her who is said not to be the maidservant of her lady."

"The pencil that once freely traced the line Along the ruler’s straight and even side— The blade that shaped the reed-pen’s edges fine— The ruler too, the hand’s unswerving guide— The rugged pumice-stone, whose rasping kiss Sharpened the blunted reed-pen’s double lip— The sponge, uptorn from Neptune’s deep abyss, To cleanse the text from accidental slip— The desk of many cells, that did contain His ink, and all materials of his trade— The scribe to Hermes gives. After long strain, Palsied by age, his hand to rest is laid."

"A scribe who does not know how to grasp the meaning -- from where will he produce a translation?"

"What kind of a scribe is a scribe who does not know Sumerian?"

"If a scribe knows only a single line but his handwriting is good, he is indeed a scribe!"

"The scribe trained in counting is deficient on clay. The scribe skilled with clay is deficient in counting."

"Because, Renisenb, it is so easy and it costs so little labour to write down ten bushels of barley, or a hundred head of cattle, or ten fields of spelt - and the thing that is written will come to seem like the real thing, and so the writer and the scribe will come to despise the man who ploughs the fields and reaps the barley and raises the cattle - but all the same the fields and the cattle are real - they are not just marks of inks on papyrus. And when all the records and all the papyrus rolls are destroyed and the scribes are scattered, the men who toil and reap will go on, and Egypt will still live."

"The wisdom of a scribe cometh by his time of leisure: and he that is less in action, shall receive wisdom."

"A chattering scribe's guilt is great."