#of

A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#short-story

The earth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudless sky. A small boy, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked his mother how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, she said. ↗

— Samuel Beckett

#fuck #irish #off #samuel #writer

One beast and only one howls in the woods by night. ↗

— Angela Carter

#wolf #wolves #short-story

Before he can become a wolf, the lycanthrope strips naked. If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were after you. ↗

— Angela Carter

#wolf #wolves #short-story

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit. ↗

— Richard Bach

#professional #professional writer #quit #who #writer

Loads of children read books about dinosaurs, underwater monsters, dragons, witches, aliens, and robots. Essentially, the people who read SF, fantasy and horror haven't grown out of enjoying the strange and weird. ↗

— China Miéville

#reading #sense-of-wonder #fantasy

It all goes back and back," Tyrion thought, "to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#asoiaf #fantasy #grrm #fantasy

My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That's why I read so much Jon Snow. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#song-of-fire-and-ice #tyrion-lannister #song

The menu is not the meal. ↗

— Alan Wilson Watts

#metaphysics #names #nominalism #philosophy #power-of-words

I want to talk to you. I want to listen to you. I want to walk with you and, yes, I want you in m bed. That's what I want today. That's what I'll want in a hundred years. If you promise to be my wife forever, I will pledge myself to your happiness. ↗

— Christina Dodd

#historical #historical-romance #queen #queen-victoria #romance