#author

And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes. A novel for me is an immersive experience where I feel as if I have lived it and that I've tasted the food and experienced the sex and experienced the terror of battle. So I want all of the detail, all of the sensory things—whether it's a good experience, or a bad experience, I want to put the reader through it. To that mind, detail is necessary, showing not telling is necessary, and nothing is gratuitous. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#inspirational #meaning #purpose #reading #storytelling

Everywhere, authority and tradition have to justify themselves in the face of questions. ↗

— Gustav Heinemann

#everywhere #face #justify #questions #themselves

Choose an author as you choose a friend. ↗

— Arthur Helps

#choose #friend #you

If you like pray like a praying mantis or fast like a faxing machine, if you have no faith, you are just wasting your time and energy. ↗

— Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

#christian #coach #faith #goodreads-author #highrtlife

The power of the word in Morocco belonged to men and to the authorities. No one asked the point of view of poor people or women. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#authorities #belonged #men #morocco #people

But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it. ↗

— Diane Johnson

#along #always #author #aware #deeper

Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects. ↗

— Andrew Johnson

#authority #broad #citizens #constitution #functions

Eighty percent of the problems that beset unification immediately disappeared when the President signed the bill increasing the authority and the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense. ↗

— Louis A. Johnson

#beset #bill #defense #disappeared #eighty

We have all been empowered by the web: everyone with a keyboard can now effectively broadcast to a national audience. In a sense, it puts each of us on the same footing as the major media conglomerates, except for AOL, who now apparently own all our thoughts and teeth. ↗

— John Hodgman

#areas-of-my-expertise #author #daily-show #funny #john-hodgman

I do not espouse the unitarian position. President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions. ↗

— Elena Kagan

#assertion #authority #clinton #constitutional #directive