#w

The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#life #metaphor #wisdom #life

Of course, everyone's going to freak out when you show up at school." "Freak out? Why?" "Because you're so much hotter now than when you left." She shrugged. "It's true. Must be a vampire thing." Simon looked baffled. "I'm hotter now?" "Sure you are. I mean, look at those two. They're both totally into you." She pointed to a few feet in front of them, where Isabelle and Maia had moved to walk side by side, their head bent together. Simon looked up ahead at the girls. Clary could almost swear he was blushing. "Are they? Sometimes they get together and whisper and stare at me. I have no idea what it's about." "Sure you don't." Clary grinned. "Poor you, you have two cute girls vying for your love. Your life is hard. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#simon-lewis #vampires #life

If you're gonna burn a bridge behind you, make sure you've crossed it first. ↗

— Quentin R. Bufogle

#philosophy #wisdom #life

No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#labor #prize #work #life

Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#fiction-writing #on-fiction #life

I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. ↗

— Anne Lamott

#writing #life

I should say upfront that I have never been in a cellar in my life. In fact, I can see no reason why anyone should ever go into a cellar unless there is wine involved. ↗

— Rachel Hawkins

#life

Clary," he said. "You saved my life." "I stabbed you. With a massive sword. You caught on fire." His lips twitched imperceptibly. "Okay," he said. "So maybe our problems aren't like other couples. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#jace-lightwood #life

Sometimes in life, from out of a myriad of prosaic decisions like what to eat and where to sleep and how to dress, a true crossroads is revealed. In these moments, when the fog of relative irrelevancy lifts and fate rolls out a demand for free will, there is only left or right – no option of four-by-fouring into the underbrush between two paths, no negotiating with the choice that has been presented. You must answer the call and pick your way. And there is no reverse. ↗

— J.R. Ward

#black #brotherhood #dagger #lover #ward

I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour — write, write, write. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#writing #life