#gossip

If any man seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue...this mans religion is in vain ↗

— James

#religion

In a very real way, one writes a story to find out what happens in it. Before it is written it sits in the mind like a piece of overheard gossip or a bit of intriguing tattle. The story process is like taking up such a piece of gossip, hunting down the people actually involved, questioning them, finding out what really occurred, and visiting pertinent locations. As with gossip, you can't be too surprised if important things turn up that were left out of the first-heard version entirely; or if points initially made much of turn out to have been distorted, or simply not to have happened at all. ↗

— Samuel R. Delany

#story #writing #writing-process #science

Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about every human being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. ↗

— Booth Tarkington

#growth

What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave. ↗

— Criss Jami

#deceit #defamation #denial #enemy #feelings

Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong. ↗

— L.M. Montgomery

#right #truth #wrong #gossip

While gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact. ↗

— Andrea Dworkin

#among #called #especially #fact #gossip

I was both very successful and very left; the living demonstration of how you could be on the left and still be in the gossip columns and be envied for the money you made. ↗

— Elia Kazan

#columns #could #demonstration #envied #gossip

President Obama is traveling around the country, proposing a stimulus bill that has already failed once. Instead of having an honest discussion about whether or not a plan that already failed once will fail again, the establishment would rather distract the American people with gossip. ↗

— Alveda King

#again #already #american #american people #around

Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid. ↗

— Walter Winchell

#gossip #leaves #nothing #practically #saying

Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present. ↗

— P. J. O'Rourke

#flattery #gossip #objects #present #say