Literary Quotes

We sat still, our breathing loud and rhythmic, its music melancholy, a traditional song of sorrow.

I don’t like coming over here at night, the girl said. The bayou is scary in the dark, all manner of things running wild out there.

The burden is on the sane.

Olga was better, in the sun, where he could see every pore in her skin. Get closer. Feel her next to him. It was all he wanted in the world. It was the last thing in the world that he could do.

…he’d assumed their relationship would go on forever. It was going on now, but in another way, like the rearrangement of the stars, which were all still in the sky, just burning in unexpected places.

We just move on, don’t we, with traitors still amongst us? But there was one thought that wouldn’t go away. If I loved him, I would forgive him.

But this bus was a bit too full. The driver only appeared to control the glass and metal around him. In reality, he was at the nose of a travelling paroxysm.

I wouldn't dignify it with the name immoral.

You know what people are doing on the other side of the world, what’s happening on another planet, but not what’s going on inside the person next to you.

Were the stars against him? A woman's fingers are quicker in the sky and shine more brightly.

We put our flags in soil when we arrive, as if it now belongs to us and we know where we are.

The world is indeed a cold, hard stone.

The emotion was the most important thing.

Back in our apartment, lights out, The Professor emerged from beneath the bed." - from "The Professor Spends the Night, " in issue 4 of Literary Orphans

All good writers are thieves. The best get away with a heist.

The Lethean Library, for all its incalculable volumes, is, I know, sadly incomplete without Mr. Goodman's effort.

It took me most of my childhood to realize that traditions have infinite power over us.-MUKTA

I wonder if every girl yearns for her father’s love, almost like waiting to catch the moon hiding in the trees—beautiful, yet so eternally elusive.-MUKTA

Sifting through scattered memories is like sifting through sand. Some remain, some simply slipaway…– TARA

It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind.

Even at the moment when the last page is turned, a great part of the book, its finer detail, is already vague and doubtful. A little later, after a few days or months, how much is really left of it?

Forget ideas, Mr. Author. What kind of pen do you use?

Last night I dreamt Moses and I were rowing underwater.We could breathe and talk to one another.We rowed past schools of fish and sea anemones and Moses named them for me.”—Jules Finn

To deprive the derelicts of hope is right, and to sustain them in their illusory "pipe dreams" is right also.

CONGRATULATIONS DL Havlin! Your entry, "There are No Lights in Naples", an unpublished short fiction - flash fiction genre category, is a finalist for the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards competition!

It's no such thing! she said. It's friendship! And if you're a man who can't tell friendship from charity, then you're to be pitied!

Church words are easy to say, but they're not so easy to live by.

Cyrus is the meat and potatoes of my life, but Prudence was a cupcake I could enjoy just for the sheer sweetness of being with her.

Here's to the future, he said and lifted the glass to his mouth. There was a lump of regret stuck in his throat as he spoke the words, but he washed it down with the whiskey.

Tastes change, Cherie. I find the older I get the more I like to be reminded of my youth.

War’s all either country knows, and everything seems to depend on it now.

I offer you your life, friend, and recommend you take it.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that things can't be changed, that things can't be done. The can and they will, if we are united in what we believe.

As people's hopes soared, Jana felt a tinge of fear.

He nodded, looking across the room at the sea of photographers and journalists. The microphones spread around him like birds waiting to be fed.

Mr Martinek turned back to Jana. 'Thirty-eight per cent alcohol, sixty-two per cent fire - all the way from Karlovy Vary.

As the sun lowered into the city's skyline, casting an orange glow over the islands, Jana could feel people's hopes rising.

9 November 1989. A day nobody would forget. She had heard rumours about the wall.

I don't know, Benes. I'm not sure I've ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.' He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his hand.

One word was the method by which the state collected their information. They could reel in the informants and spread them out like tentacles, ready to sting in any direction.

What a face this girl possessed!—could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born.

A girl without braidsis like a city without bridges.

If you love my work, you are a good critic. If you do not love my work, you are a 'not good' critic.

The truth is not that we need the critics in order to enjoy the authors, but that we need the authors in order to enjoy the critics.

I define influence simply as literary love, tempered by defense. The defenses vary from poet to poet. But the overwhelming presence of love is vital to understanding how great literature works.

There are ultimate truths you cannot hide from no matter how high you climb or how long you sit alone. Everything is on its way somewhere, even if that place feels like nowhere.

The church marched into his heart. Williams never abandon Anglicanism

In Australia the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle. I just didn’t expect to end up with the chicken.

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn

Let the enemy fall by their swords. Words not worth reading die their own death. But our Words will be Told!