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Archives - April 2001

April 1, 2001

The morning is greying with an unwritten poem. An attack of perhapses.

– Gabriel Preil, poet

April 2, 2001

A mystery is a book the publisher thinks will sell better if it has "mystery" on the cover.

– Donald E. Westlake

April 3, 2001

The unconscious creates, the ego edits.

– Stanley Kunitz, poet

April 4, 2001

Biography lends to death a new terror.

– Oscar Wilde

April 5, 2001

Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.

– Sylvia Plath

April 6, 2001

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy -- and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

– Stephen King

April 7, 2001

In the novel you get the journey. In a poem you get the arrival.

– Mary Sarton, poet

April 8, 2001

The sheer pleasure of telling a story may be the human condition that most resembles levitation.

– Gabriel Garcia Marquez

April 9, 2001

We read to know we're not alone.
milk.

– C. S. Lewis

April 10, 2001

I never write exercises, but sometimes I write poems which fail and call them exercises.

– Robert Frost

April 11, 2001

I try to leave out the parts that people skip.

– Elmore Leonard

April 12, 2001

Poet: Lofty synonym for "blockhead."

– Gustave Flaubert

April 13, 2001

We want competence, but competence itself is deadly. What you want is vision to go with it, and you do not get this from a writing class.

– Flannery O'Connor

April 14, 2001

Poetry. I like to think of it as statements made on the way to the grave.

– Dylan Thomas

April 15, 2001

Happy Easter, Happy Easter, Me oh my there's a lot to buy, there's shopping I must do. Happy Easter to you.

– Fred Astaire in Easter Parade

April 16, 2001

The moment a man begins to talk about technique, that's proof he is fresh out of ideas.

– Raymond Chandler

April 17, 2001

Of the many definitions of poetry, the simplest is still the best: "memorable speech."

– W. H. Auden

April 18, 2001

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

– Annie Dillard

April 19, 2001

The adjective is the enemy of the noun.

– Voltaire

April 20, 2001

Remember that each character must sound different from the others. And they should not all sound like you.

– Anne Lamott

April 21, 2001

Resist much, obey little.

– Walt Whitman

April 22, 2001

Books, if you don't put them first, tend to sulk. They retreat into a corner and refuse to work.

– Salman Rushdie

April 23, 2001

Say it, say it. The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

– Muriel Rukeyser, poet

April 24, 2001

To Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, Hamlet was a minor play.

– Henry Miller

April 25, 2001

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either.

– Robert Graves, poet

April 26, 2001

It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.

– Rejection letter for George Orwell's ANIMAL FARM

April 27, 2001

Thirty percent of Americans may write poetry, but I doubt that thirty percent read poetry, even their own.

– David Lehman, poet

April 28, 2001

At my first literary luncheon, a woman asked me with absolute sincerity, 'How does it feel to have written your best book first?'

– Amy Tan

April 29, 2001

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

– Mark Strand, poet, "Eating Poetry"

April 30, 2001

The only reason to write a first novel is if you absolutely can not.

– Claire M. Smith, literary agent