But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I see any meaning... When one says picture, one says of character, when one says novel, one says of incident, and the terms may be transposed. What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?... It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look out at you in a certain way; or if it be not an incident, I think it will be hard to say what it is. At the same time it is an expression of character. If you say you don't see it (character in that

Henry James, The Art of Fiction,

I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.

Bram Stoker

I could never say that one religion is wrong. I could never say that this person's God is wrong, I could never say that someone is wrong because they don't believe in God.

Amber Tamblyn

All great art is born of the metropolis.

Ezra Pound

In the beginning there was the word. The word was Jah. The word is in I, Jah is in I. I make what is good, better, and what is better, best. I follow this in every aspect of life.

Peter Tosh

There will always be those who feel more comfortable not venturing from the warmth of the hearth, but there are those who prefer to look out the window and wonder what is beyond the horizon.

Jimmy Buffett

Banality is a terribly likely consequence of the underused of a good mind. That is why in particular it is a female affliction.

Cynthia PropperSeton

Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I think somehow men understand other men's need for respect differently than they understand it for a woman. I'm disappointed to have to say that, but I think it's undeniably true.

Carly Fiorina

I liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it.

John Green

The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not.

Christopher Hitchens