#vent

The thriller is not a recent invention. It probably goes back to the dawn of storytelling. ↗

— Lee Child

#dawn #goes #invention #probably #recent

The severity of the laws prevents their execution. ↗

— Charles de Montesquieu

#laws #prevents #severity #their

I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure. ↗

— Steven Chu

#approached #bulk #chore #i #intellectual

All of the biggest technological inventions created by man - the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness. ↗

— Mark Kennedy

#airplane #automobile #biggest #computer #created

Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of Western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process. ↗

— Kenneth Clark

#architecture #been #could #foreseen #gothic

It is my fervent hope and prayer that by exposing my mistakes and by pointing out the things that were a part of my early life, some who might be following the same paths might not make those same mistakes. ↗

— John Clayton

#early life #exposing #fervent #following #hope

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them. ↗

— Jean Cocteau

#always #bear #bewildered #bizarre #design

I wanted to write an adventure story, not, it's true, I really did. I shall have failed, that's all. Adventures bore me. I have no idea how to talk about countries, how to make people wish they had been there. I am not a good travelling salesman. Countries? Where are they , whatever became of them. When I was twelve I dreamed of Hongkong. That tedious, commonplace little provincial town! Shops sprouting from every nook and cranny! The Chinese junks pictured on the lids of chocolate boxes used to fascinate me. Junks: sort of chopped-off barges, where the housewives do all their cooking and washing on deck. They even have television. As for the Niagara Falls: water, nothing but water! A dam is more interesting; at least one can occasionally see a big crack at its base, and hope for some excitement. When one travels, one sees nothing but hotels. Squalid rooms, with iron bedsteads, and a picture of some kind hanging on the wall from a rusty nail, a coloured print of London Bridge or the Eiffel Tower. One also sees trains, lots of trains, and airports that look like restaurants, and restaurants that look like morgues. All the ports in the world are hemmed in by oil slicks and shabby customs buildings. In the streets of the towns, people keep to the sidewalks, cars stop at red lights. If only one occasionally arrived in a country where women are the colour of steel and men wear owls on their heads. But no, they are sensible, they all have black ties, partings to one side, brassières and stiletto heels. In all the restaurants, when one has finished eating one calls over the individual who has been prowling among the tables, and pays him with a promissory note. There are cigarettes everywhere! There are airplanes and automobiles everywhere. ↗

— J.M.G. Le Clézio

#airplane #airport #automobile #country #hotel

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing. ↗

— Jonathan Coe

#between #choose #conventional #down #i

As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies, as a form of abstract thought. I don't wish to deny the uses of the intellect, but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere. ↗

— J. M. Coetzee

#abstract thought #creation #deny #development #fantasies