Tag Archives: style

Norman Mailer (b. January 31): “Style is character.”

31 Jan

mailer3-crop

“A really good style comes only when a man has become as good as he can be. Style is character. A good style cannot come from a bad, undisciplined character… I think good style is a matter of rendering out of oneself all the cupidities, all the cripplings, all the vague desires. And then I think one has to develop one’s physical grace.”

~ Norman Mailer, b. 31 January 1923

pinterest.com/pin/39406565462367931/

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James Jones (b. November 6): “I write to reach eternity” & other quotes on writing

6 Nov
Writer James Jones

pinterest.com/pin/39406565465102462/

James Jones (born 6 November 1921, died 9 May 1977) was an American author who won the 1952 National Book Award for his first published novel, From Here to Eternity, adapted for film and made into a television series a generation later.

Quotes on writing:

  1. I write to reach eternity.
  2. Old soldiers never die, they write novels.
  3. Having a little talent as a writer is like having a little talent as a brain surgeon.
  4. The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. 
  5. You have to really work at it to write. I guess there has to be talent first; but even with talent you still have to work at it.
  6. I believe it is good for an American writer to get outside his country — outside his continent — and see it from a vantage point outside its pervading emotional climate.
  7. I think that a classic style in writing tends to remove the reader one level from the immediacy of the experience. For any normal reader, I think a colloquial style makes him feel more as though he is within the action, instead of just reading about it.

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There are three levels of readership…

6 Sep

Image result for nabokov

There seem to be three levels of readership: at the bottom, those who go after “human interest”; in the middle, the people who want ideas, packaged thought about Life and Truth; at the top, the proper readers, who go for style.

~ VLADIMIR NABOKOV

 

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Anita Loos (b. April 26): “I love high style in low company.”

26 Apr

loos

Anita Loos (born 26 April 1889, died 18 August 1981) was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Nine Quotes:

  1. Fate keeps on happening.
  2. Memory is more indelible than ink.
  3. I’ve always loved high style in low company.
  4. It isn’t that gentlemen really prefer blondes, it’s just that we look dumber.
  5. A kiss on the hand may feel very, very good, but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever.
  6. On a plane you can pick up more and better people than on any other public conveyance since the stagecoach.
  7. The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed.
  8. There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants – more than anything else – to become rich. As long as they don’t have the money, it’ll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they’ll understand how important other things are – and have always been.
  9. I can never take for granted the euphoria produced by a cup of coffee. I’m grateful every day that it isn’t banned as a drug, that I don’t have to buy it from a pusher, that its cost is minimal and there’s no need to increase the intake. I can count on its stimulation 365 mornings every year. And thanks to the magic in a cup of coffee, I’m able to plunge into a whole day’s cheerful thinking.

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Vladimir Nabokov (b. April 22): “I think like a genius, speak like a child.”

22 Apr

Vladimir Nabokov, born 22 April 1899 and died 2 July 1977, was a Russian-American novelist who was praised for his use of complex and original plots, and clever alliteration and wordplay. Nabokov’s Lolita is his most famous novel. He was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times, but never won it. He also made serious contributions as a lepidopterist and chess composer.

Quotes on writing:

  1. I don’t think in any language. I think in images.
  2. The more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.
  3. Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.
  4. Style and structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.
  5. I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.
  6. A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.
  7. Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
  8. Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.
  9. Lolita is famous, not me. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.
  10. The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.
  11. Turning one’s novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches for a painting that has long ago been finished and framed.
  12. The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
  13. My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.
  14. There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.

 

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Norman Mailer (b. January 31): “Style is character.”

31 Jan

mailer3-crop

“A really good style comes only when a man has become as good as he can be. Style is character. A good style cannot come from a bad, undisciplined character… I think good style is a matter of rendering out of oneself all the cupidities, all the cripplings, all the vague desires. And then I think one has to develop one’s physical grace.”

~ Norman Mailer, b. 31 January 1923

pinterest.com/pin/39406565462367931/

Tags: , ,

Anita Loos (b. April 26): “I love high style in low company.”

26 Apr

loosAnita Loos (born 26 April 1889, died 18 August 1981) was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Nine Quotes:

  1. Fate keeps on happening.
  2. Memory is more indelible than ink.
  3. I’ve always loved high style in low company.
  4. It isn’t that gentlemen really prefer blondes, it’s just that we look dumber.
  5. A kiss on the hand may feel very, very good, but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever.
  6. On a plane you can pick up more and better people than on any other public conveyance since the stagecoach.
  7. The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed.
  8. There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants – more than anything else – to become rich. As long as they don’t have the money, it’ll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they’ll understand how important other things are – and have always been.
  9. I can never take for granted the euphoria produced by a cup of coffee. I’m grateful every day that it isn’t banned as a drug, that I don’t have to buy it from a pusher, that its cost is minimal and there’s no need to increase the intake. I can count on its stimulation 365 mornings every year. And thanks to the magic in a cup of coffee, I’m able to plunge into a whole day’s cheerful thinking.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Norman Mailer (b. January 31): “Style is character.”

31 Jan

mailer3

“A really good style comes only when a man has become as good as he can be. Style is character. A good style cannot come from a bad, undisciplined character… I think good style is a matter of rendering out of oneself all the cupidities, all the cripplings, all the vague desires. And then I think one has to develop one’s physical grace.”

~ Norman Mailer, b. 31 January 1923

pinterest.com/pin/39406565462367931/

Tags: , ,

Anita Loos (b. April 26): “I love high style in low company.”

26 Apr

loosAnita Loos (born 26 April 1889, died 18 August 1981) was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Nine Quotes:

  1. Fate keeps on happening.
  2. Memory is more indelible than ink.
  3. I’ve always loved high style in low company.
  4. It isn’t that gentlemen really prefer blondes, it’s just that we look dumber.
  5. A kiss on the hand may feel very, very good, but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever.
  6. On a plane you can pick up more and better people than on any other public conveyance since the stagecoach.
  7. The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed.
  8. There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants – more than anything else – to become rich. As long as they don’t have the money, it’ll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they’ll understand how important other things are – and have always been.
  9. I can never take for granted the euphoria produced by a cup of coffee. I’m grateful every day that it isn’t banned as a drug, that I don’t have to buy it from a pusher, that its cost is minimal and there’s no need to increase the intake. I can count on its stimulation 365 mornings every year. And thanks to the magic in a cup of coffee, I’m able to plunge into a whole day’s cheerful thinking.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

James Jones (b. November 6): “I write to reach eternity” & other quotes on writing

6 Nov
Writer James Jones

pinterest.com/pin/39406565465102462/

James Jones (born 6 November 1921, died 9 May 1977) was an American author who won the 1952 National Book Award for his first published novel, From Here to Eternity, adapted for film and made into a television series a generation later.

Quotes on writing:

  1. I write to reach eternity.
  2. Old soldiers never die, they write novels.
  3. Having a little talent as a writer is like having a little talent as a brain surgeon.
  4. The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. 
  5. You have to really work at it to write. I guess there has to be talent first; but even with talent you still have to work at it.
  6. I believe it is good for an American writer to get outside his country — outside his continent — and see it from a vantage point outside its pervading emotional climate.
  7. I think that a classic style in writing tends to remove the reader one level from the immediacy of the experience. For any normal reader, I think a colloquial style makes him feel more as though he is within the action, instead of just reading about it.

Tags: , , , , ,

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