Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Pride is a fool's fortress
I do not write for an audience
I essentially write for myself.
I was a terrible English student.
I've not been right for any man or myself since I met you.
It is extremely important to know what you don't want to find.
Usually a good part of the people trying it end up not making it.
So writing is a very, very difficult position to obtain... and retain.
You aren't a true husband/man until you've done the work of a wife/women
I was tough. I used everything to my advantage. I could be very ruthless.
Why must we fight for the right to live, over and over, each time the sun rises?
Often we have no time for our friends but all the time in the world for our enemies.
I was too heavy to be a jockey and too honest to be a producer, so I became a writer
I was too heavy to be a jockey and too honest to be a producer, so I became a writer.
The ability of a person to atone has always been the most remarkable of human features.
My first book was rejected nine times. It turned out to be a best seller, Battle Cry? in 1953.
There is in us all that line that prevents us from fully understanding those who are different.
Writing, basically breaks down to relationships between people and that is what you write about.
Anyone who goes into writing has to find out somewhere along the line, he's either naive or insane.
A soldier has one item that cannot be neglected. His feet. They are his wheels, his mechanised warfare.
I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.
I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish
I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish.
It all begins and ends in the same place, doesn't it? Conor and me in Ballyutogue. We all come home eventually.
To be homeward bound, no matter what tragic memories you have harbored, is unlike any voyage a man can ever make.
Research to me is as important or more important than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built
Research to me is as important or more important than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built.
Look at me, man, look at me and tell me I don't know what I'm about. I'm Conor Larkin. I'm an Irishman and I've had enough.
All you have the right to ask of life is to choose a battle in this war, make the best you can, and leave the field with honor.
In order to be a good writer, you've got to be a bad boss. Self-discipline and stamina are the two major arms in a writer's arsenal.
The first thing you have to do is get immersed in the project, organizing yourself, knowing what you are going after and not going after.
You can lie to your wife or your boss, but you cannot lie to your typewriter. Sooner or later you must reveal your true self in your pages.
You usually dont know what you are going to write about so you go to the places and talk to the people who were identified with the events.
After all, the only thing that is going to save mankind is if enough people live their lives for something or someone other than themselves.
Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. 'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage.
My greatest accomplishment is Exodus. It changed a lot of peoples lives, it changed the conception of the Jewish people in the international scene.
On one occasion I went to Afghanistan to look at the borders and learn something about the situation there to see if my book was there?and it wasnt.
You can try to reach an audience, but you just write what comes out of you and you just hope that it is accepted. You do not write specifically to a generation.
Love can't mature in one room. It has to come out of the full sharing of everything: joys, aspirations, downfalls, all of it. That's the only real path to love.
I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.
To me, a writer is one of the most important soldiers in the fight for survival of the human race. He must stay at his post in the thick of fire to serve the cause of mankind.
I know writers have to be crazy. But more than that that, they have to get made and stay mad. If things don't make a writer mad, he'll end up writing Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottantail.
A novelist must know what his last chapter is going to say and one way or another work toward that last chapter. ... To me it is utterly basic, yet it seems like it's a great secret.
I am very proud of this work because it is more about the meaning of the Easter Rising and its relationship to what this whole century has been about, people liberating themselves, freeing themselves.
English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it
English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it.
Life hinges on many factors we cannot control. Two of the most important factors, we can control. We can manage our relationships-and what is life but a series of relationships?-and we can correct our mistakes, here on earth within our life span.
There's a curse on me as there's a curse on the Larkin name. The curse comes back, again and again, to taunt me! Ronan! Kilty! Tomas! And now me! What are the Irish among men? Are we lepers? Are we a blight? Will there ever be an end to our tears?
Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.
If you're lucky enough to fall in love, that's one thing. Otherwise all that was ever truly beautiful to me was boyhood. It's the meal we sup on for the rest of our lives. Love puts the icing on life. But if you don't find it...you must call on your childhood memories over and over till you do.