Just a Quote

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

While doing some research on Emerson on the Internet, I found a site that contained 692 quotes from the famous Transcendental poet. essayist and philosopher. From my point of view, he's great for quotes.

And others are great for quotes about life and death -- and everything in between.

What I enjoy about quotes is that they contain nuggets of truth (or falsehood) that a person can ponder one at a time. Instead of being bombarded with numerous ideas and insights in one reading, we can take that one quote and concentrate on its meaning. It's not nearly as confusing.

I generally leave a quote on my Facebook page every morning that I find humorous, enlightening, wise, or simply stupid. My latest novel, Shooting Star, contains quotes from the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

Since this blog primarily focuses on reading and writing, here are a few quotes I'd like to share:

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." -- Mark Twain

"You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe." -- Gustave Flaubert

 

 

"The two most engaging powers of a good author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new." -- William M. Thackeray

 

 

"Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity." -- William Zinsser

 

 

"They can't yank novelist like they can pitcher. Novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him." -- Ernest Hemingway

 

 

And to close with Mr. Emerson, "People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with the bad."

Until the next time...