#diction

The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story. ↗

— Donna Tartt

#approach #book #characters #completely #diction

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. ↗

— Groucho Marx

#intelligence #military #military intelligence #terms

Predictions are preposterous. ↗

— Jackie Mason

#preposterous

Coffee and smoking are the last great addictions. ↗

— Lara Flynn Boyle

#coffee #great #last #smoking

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#correcting #correction #criticism #inspirational #dreams

The Moth don't care when he sees The Flame. He might get burned, but he's in the game. And once he's in, he can't go back, he'll Beat his wings 'til he burns them black... No, The Moth don't care when he sees The Flame. . . The Moth don't care if The Flame is real, 'Cause Flame and Moth got a sweetheart deal. And nothing fuels a good flirtation, Like Need and Anger and Desperation... No, The Moth don't care if The Flame is real. . . ↗

— Aimee Mann

#fire #flame #moths #anger

When you're an addict, you can go without feeling anything except drunk or stoned or hungry. Still, when you compare this to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. It looks like a very viable option. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#anger

If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up! If I spoke a gentle word in your hearing, may it deafen you! If I touched you with my lips, may the touch be poison to you! A curse upon this roof that gave me shelter! Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon all belonging to you! ↗

— Charles Dickens

#malediction #anger

In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictory ideas. In other words, wisdom might be, seem to be, two contradictory ideas both expressed at their highest level and just let to sit in the same cage sort of, vibrating. So, I think as a writer, I'm really never sure of what I really believe. ↗

— George Saunders

#contradiction #ideas #wisdom #writing #art

...how absurd human beings are and how magnificent. ↗

— Benjamin Zander

#contradiction #creativity #possibility #talent #art