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fiction - Bilingual quotes that celebrate the beauty of language, showcasing meaningful expressions in two unique perspectives.

She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth.
Henry James What Maisie Knew
She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth.
Then the sun came up and shook the night chill out of the air the way you'd shake a rug.
John Steinbeck Cannery Row
Then the sun came up and shook the night chill out of the air the way you'd shake a rug.
Fiction shows us the past as well as the present moment in mortal light; it is an art served by the indelibility of our memory, and one empowered by a sharp and prophetic awareness of what is ephemeral. It is by the ephemeral that our feeling is so strongly aroused for what endures, or strives to endure.
Eudora Welty On Writing
Fiction shows us the past as well as the present moment in mortal light; it is an art served by the indelibility of our memory, and one empowered by a sharp and prophetic awareness of what is ephemeral. It is by the ephemeral that our feeling is so strongly aroused for what endures, or strives to endure.
Human life is fiction's only theme.
Eudora Welty On Writing
Human life is fiction's only theme.
Art, though, is never the voice of a country; it is an even more precious thing, the voice of the individual, doing its best to speak, not comfort of any sort, but truth. And the art that speaks it most unmistakably, most directly, most variously, most fully, is fiction; in particular, the novel.
Eudora Welty On Writing
Art, though, is never the voice of a country; it is an even more precious thing, the voice of the individual, doing its best to speak, not comfort of any sort, but truth. And the art that speaks it most unmistakably, most directly, most variously, most fully, is fiction; in particular, the novel.
Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience.
Eudora Welty On Writing
Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience.
There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget.
Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget.
Few humans see fairies or hear their music, but many find fairy rings of dark grass, scattered with toadstools, left by their dancing feet.
Judy Allen Fantasy Encyclopedia
Few humans see fairies or hear their music, but many find fairy rings of dark grass, scattered with toadstools, left by their dancing feet.
I sat down in a booth, and the waitress shoved a menu in front of me. There wasn't anything on it that sounded good, and anyway, one look at her and my stomach turned flipflops… Every goddamned restaurant I go to, it's always the same way… They'll have some old bag on the payroll - I figure they keep her locked up in the mop closet until they see me coming. And they'll doll her up in the dirtiest goddamned apron they can find and smear that crappy red polish all over her fingernails, and everything about her is smeary and sloppy and smelly. And she's the dame that always waits on me.
Jim Thompson A Hell of a Woman
I sat down in a booth, and the waitress shoved a menu in front of me. There wasn't anything on it that sounded good, and anyway, one look at her and my stomach turned flipflops… Every goddamned restaurant I go to, it's always the same way… They'll have some old bag on the payroll - I figure they keep her locked up in the mop closet until they see me coming. And they'll doll her up in the dirtiest goddamned apron they can find and smear that crappy red polish all over her fingernails, and everything about her is smeary and sloppy and smelly. And she's the dame that always waits on me.
Freaky kids like us can't ever be normal- Tyler says smugly- Our generation is some new kind of evolutionary development, my shrink says- Normal is just average, not cool. My latest diagnosis is A.P.M, Acute Premature Melancholia, usually an affliction of late middle age, they think is genetic since Ty Senoir has had it all his life, too.You look if you might be A.P.M, too, Sky: that kind of pissed-off mopey look in your face like you swallowed something really gross and can't spit it out.
Joyce Carol Oates My Sister, My Love
Freaky kids like us can't ever be normal- Tyler says smugly- Our generation is some new kind of evolutionary development, my shrink says- Normal is just average, not cool. My latest diagnosis is A.P.M, Acute Premature Melancholia, usually an affliction of late middle age, they think is genetic since Ty Senoir has had it all his life, too.You look if you might be A.P.M, too, Sky: that kind of pissed-off mopey look in your face like you swallowed something really gross and can't spit it out.
When feeling came back, in a storm of color and force and sensation, the most you could do was hold on to the person beside you and hope you could weather it. Alex closed her eyes and expected the worst-but it wasn't a bad thing; it was just a different thing. A messier one, more complicated one. She hesitated, and then she kissed Patrick back, willing to concede that you might have to lose control before you could find what you'd been missing.
Jodi Picoult Nineteen Minutes
When feeling came back, in a storm of color and force and sensation, the most you could do was hold on to the person beside you and hope you could weather it. Alex closed her eyes and expected the worst-but it wasn't a bad thing; it was just a different thing. A messier one, more complicated one. She hesitated, and then she kissed Patrick back, willing to concede that you might have to lose control before you could find what you'd been missing.
It is sometimes the minor, not the major, characters in a novel who hold the author's affection longest. It may be that one loses affection for the major characters because they suck off so much energy as one pushes them through their lives.
Larry McMurtry Roads: Driving America's...
It is sometimes the minor, not the major, characters in a novel who hold the author's affection longest. It may be that one loses affection for the major characters because they suck off so much energy as one pushes them through their lives.
Many writers, good writers who ought to know better, focus so tightly on the structure demanded by a crime story that they lose track of the fact that they are writing a novel. Accusations of both sensationalism and trivialisation are, alas, often justified.
Laurie R. King The Arvon Book of Crime...
Many writers, good writers who ought to know better, focus so tightly on the structure demanded by a crime story that they lose track of the fact that they are writing a novel. Accusations of both sensationalism and trivialisation are, alas, often justified.
All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?
Milan Kundera The Art of the Novel
All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?
I'm not smarter than you, I'm more knowledgeable than you, and that's only because I'm older than you. Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents.
Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud and...
I'm not smarter than you, I'm more knowledgeable than you, and that's only because I'm older than you. Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents.
Who can know from the word goodbye what kind of parting is in store for us.
Arundhati Roy The Ministry of Utmost...
Who can know from the word goodbye what kind of parting is in store for us.
Enemies can't break your spirit, only friends can.
Arundhati Roy The Ministry of Utmost...
Enemies can't break your spirit, only friends can.
Books do pretend ...but squeezed in between is even more that is true-without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
Matthew Pearl The Last Dickens
Books do pretend ...but squeezed in between is even more that is true-without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
Fiction is like wrestling with angels-you do not expect to win, but you do expect to come away from the experience changed.
Jane Yolen Take Joy: A Writer's...
Fiction is like wrestling with angels-you do not expect to win, but you do expect to come away from the experience changed.
Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.
Jane Yolen The Books of Great Alta
Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.
I took one of my hands in the other, tried to imagine what it would feel like if it was another person's hand holding mine. There have been times where I felt that I might die of loneliness.
Gail Honeyman Eleanor Oliphant Is...
I took one of my hands in the other, tried to imagine what it would feel like if it was another person's hand holding mine. There have been times where I felt that I might die of loneliness.
I want to keep you, till the end of days.
J.D. Robb Delusion in Death
I want to keep you, till the end of days.
I'd always had a guilty preference for fiction. Since I seemed now to be living fiction, this proved to have been an entirely reasonable choice.
Robin McKinley Sunshine
I'd always had a guilty preference for fiction. Since I seemed now to be living fiction, this proved to have been an entirely reasonable choice.
...we haven't had any accidents for months now...Everything on that island is perfectly fine.
Michael Crichton Jurassic Park
...we haven't had any accidents for months now...Everything on that island is perfectly fine.
Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.
Michael Crichton State of Fear
Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.
Once evil is individualized, becoming part of everyday life, the way of resisting it also becomes individual. How does the soul survive? is the essential question. And the response is: through love and imagination.
Azar Nafisi Reading Lolita in Tehran:...
Once evil is individualized, becoming part of everyday life, the way of resisting it also becomes individual. How does the soul survive? is the essential question. And the response is: through love and imagination.
Life has to end," she said. "Love doesn't.
Mitch Albom The Five People You Meet...
Life has to end," she said. "Love doesn't.
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