Ballpoint Quotes & Sayings

Mina penned the jubilant words into her blue spiral notebook with her favorite ballpoint pen. She faithfully used the same pen when writing all of her entries in the hope that — Chanda Hahn

Two hundred Romans, and no one's got a pen? Never mind!
He slung his M16 onto his back and pulled out a hand grenade. There were many screaming Romans. Then the hand grenade morphed into a ballpoint pen, and Mars began to write.
Frank looked at Percy with wide eyes. He mouthed: Can your sword do grenade form?
Percy mouthed back, No. Shut up. — Rick Riordan

During the heat of the space race in the 1960s, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed a ballpoint pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of approximately $1 million US. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth. The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol. "For Gogol Ganguli," it says on the front endpaper in his father's tranquil hand, in red ballpoint ink, the letters rising gradually, optimistically, on the diagonal toward the upper right-hand corner of the page. "The man who gave you his name, from the man who gave you your name" is written within quotation marks. — Jhumpa Lahiri

That evening, Hope wrote a letter to her MP, Jack Crow. She found no difficulty at all in composing it, but quite a bit in writing it. She hadn't hand-written an entire page since primary school. In the end she found an app on her glasses that sampled her handwriting and turned it into a font that looked like her handwriting would if it had been regular, and printed it off. There was even an app for the printer that indented the paper a little, and an ink that looked like ballpoint ink. — Ken MacLeod

Where some may see flat, static narratives, I see a spectrum of tonal gradations and realities. What I am creating is literally black portraiture with ballpoint pen ink. I'm looking for that in-between state in an individual where the overarching definition is lost. Skin as geography is the terrain I expand by emphasizing the specificity of blackness, where an individual's subjectivity, various realities and experiences can be drawn onto the diverse topography of the epidermis. From there, the possibilities of portraying a fully-fledged person are endless. — Toyin Odutola

First, consider the pen you write with. It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand. You don't want to slow up your hand even more with a slow pen. A ballpoint, a pencil, a felt tip, for sure, are slow. Go to a stationery store and see what feels good to you. Try out different kinds. Don't get too fancy and expensive. I mostly use a cheap Sheaffer fountain pen, about $1.95 ... You want to be able to feel the connection and texture of the pen on paper. — Natalie Goldberg

The BALLPOINT PENGUINS, black and white,
Do little else but write and write.
Although they've nothing much to say,
They write and write it anyway ... — Jack Prelutsky

Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the color blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to ballpoint life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid lifestyle, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life.
And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractables, whereupon he was aken away, locked up, wrote a book and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make fools of themselves in public. — Douglas Adams

He had written in cheap ballpoint ink that had blotted the five pages in many places. His handwriting was a looping but legible scrawl, and ha must have been bearing down hard, because the words were actually engraved into the cheap notebook pages; if I'd closed my eyes and run my fingertips over the backs of those torn-out sheets, it would have been like reading Braille — Stephen King

ballpoint pens guaranteed right on them to write a lifetime on butter under water, — Anonymous

Earlier in the day, while killing some hours by circling in blue ballpoint ink every uppercase M in the front section of a month-old New York Times, Chip had concluded that he was behaving like a depressed person. Now, as his telephone began to ring, it occurred to him that a depressed person ought to continue staring at the TV and ignore the ringing - ought to light another cigarette and, with no trace of emotional affect, watch another cartoon while his machine took whoever's message. That his impulse, instead, was to jump to his feet and answer the phone - that he could so casually betray the arduous wasting of a day - cast doubt on the authenticity of his suffering. He felt as if he lacked the ability to lose all volition and connection with reality the way depressed people did in books and movies. It seemed to him, as he silenced the TV and hurried into his kitchen, that he was failing even at the miserable task of falling properly apart. — Jonathan Franzen

The camera's a ballpoint pen, an imbecile; it's not worth anything if you don't have anything to say. — Roberto Rossellini

How old are you?" the woman asked. "You look about eleven." "Twenty-four," Mae said. "My god. You don't have a mark on you. Were we ever twenty-four, my love?" She turned to the man, who was using a ballpoint pen to scratch the arch of his foot. He shrugged, and the woman let the matter drop. — Dave Eggers

BLOOM: As far as I'm concerned, computers have as much to do with literature as space travel, perhaps much less. I can only write with a ballpoint pen, with a Rolling Writer, they're called, a black Rolling Writer on a lined yellow legal pad on a certain kind of clipboard. And then someone else types it.
INTERVIEWER: And someone else edits?
BLOOM: No one edits. I edit. I refuse to be edited. — Harold Bloom

I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don't allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday. — Maya Angelou

Nor did I respond with the obvious, that my brother might very well go to jail, probably would someday, but he would never ever call. Three words were scratched in ballpoint blue on the wall above the phone. Think a head. I thought how that was good advice, but maybe a bit late for anyone using that phone. I thought how it would be a good name for a beauty salon. — Karen Joy Fowler

The pen didn't look like much, just a regular cheap ballpoint, but when Percy uncapped it, it grew into a glowing bronze sword. The blade balanced perfectly. The leather grip fit his hand like it had been custom designed for him. Etched along the guard was an Ancient Greek word Percy somehow understood: Anaklusmos - Riptide. He'd woken up with this sword — Rick Riordan

SKANK is scribbled in ballpoint pen on my desk. I don't exactly know why my heart starts to thump. It's not like there aren't messages and other handiwork all over this school. Take auditorium seat J-8. I found out during last week's Expectations of Excellence assembly that it's got a faded image of a penis carved on the armrest. No one likes to sit in the Pecker Chair for an assembly. People make fun of you the whole day after that. Ask Rob. — Meg Medina

Love is like this small room where a child brings you to show you all their treasures. First the child shows you all the new toys that are bright and shiny and top of the line. But then she shows you all the stuff that has ended up at the bottom of the trunk. There are dolls with eyes that wobble, hair that is falling out of their heads, and dirt behind their ears. Their fingertips have been chewed off by dogs and they have been drawn on with ballpoint pen. It has been so long since they have been held or anyone has told them that they are lovely. They lie at the bottom of the toy chest, hidden and ashamed. You are either going to be disgusted by them, or you are going to be so filled with love for them that your heart almost breaks.
I took his hand in mine. — Heather O'Neill

Writing! There's nothing like it! Well, you would know! You sit down in a corner. By yourself. With a sheet of paper and an old ballpoint. And out it comes! While the world, and all the steps in it, can go hang!

Of course, it's often rubbish. Tedious, boring, over the top. But then you hit your stride for a few yards, and you feel wonderful! You find a phrase that exactly expresses what you want to say about something. You read it back to yourself again and again. It feels good. You read it again the next day; it still feels good. — David Burke

I concentrated hard and snapped my fingers. "You don't see the sword," I told the girl. "It's just a ballpoint pen." She blinked. "Um ... no. It's a sword, weirdo. — Rick Riordan

But the stories you told yourself
which you pretended to recall as if they'd happened every afternoon of an infinite summer
were really a pocketful of days distorted into legend, another jailhouse exaggeration, like the dimensions of those ballpoint-crosshatched tits or of the purported mountains of blow you once used to enjoy, or how you'd bellowed an avenger's roar when you squeezed the trigger of a pistol you'd actually brandished in self-pissing terror. How often had that hydrant even been opened? Did you jet water through a car window, what, twice at best? Summer burned a few afternoons long, in the end. — Jonathan Lethem

WHO'S GOT A TAMPON? I JUST GOT MY PERIOD, I will announce loudly to nobody in particular in a women's bathroom in a San Francisco restaurant, or to a co-ed dressing room of a music festival in Prague, or to the unsuspecting gatherers in a kitchen at a party in Sydney, Munich, or Cincinnati. Invariably, across the world, I have seen and heard the rustling of female hands through backpacks and purses, until the triumphant moment when a stranger fishes one out with a kind smile. No money is ever exchanged. The unspoken universal understanding is: Today, it is my turn to take the tampon. Tomorrow, it shall be yours. There is a constant, karmic tampon circle. It also exists, I've found, with Kleenex, cigarettes, and ballpoint pens. — Amanda Palmer

Once the man vacates the room, Genova motions toward the table between us. "Gun."
I hold up my hands. "I don't have one."
His brow furrows. "You came unarmed?"
"I never carry a gun," I say, "but that doesn't mean I'm unarmed."
Everything's a weapon if you look at it the right way.
"Knives, then."
"None of those, either."
"Then what do you got?"
"Not much." I consider it for a moment. "Some spare change, a peppermint, my wallet ... oh, and I've got a pen in my pocket."
He looks at me with disbelief. "A pen."
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a simple black ballpoint ink pen.
Probably cost a dollar.
"You gonna kill somebody with that?" he asks.
I shrug, setting it on the table. "You never know. — J.M. Darhower

When NASA started sending up astronauts, they discovered that ballpoint pens don't work in zero gravity. So they spent twelve million dollars and more than a decade developing a pen that writes under any condition, on almost every surface. The Russians used a pencil. — Garrison Keillor

She picked up the ballpoint pen lying on the table, and played with it for a few seconds, but then she looked at the clock again. It had done its job: in the five minutes since her last look, it had advanced five minutes' worth. — Haruki Murakami

As for Percy, he held his magic ballpoint pen like he was trying to decide whether to bust out some sword moves or autograph Nike's chariot. — Rick Riordan

It was a sight to make Zane Grey reach for his ballpoint, or Sergio Leone send out for another fifty foot of standard eight. — Robert Rankin

I still draw a lot though. Ballpoint pen is my preferred medium. — Mackenzie Crook

Twiddle-twiddle away at my softly clicky keyboard for a while, making twiddly adjustments all along- and then print what I have twiddled. Glare at the printout and snarl and curse and scribble almost illegibly all over it with a ballpoint pen. Go back to the machine and enter the scribbles. Repeat this procedure until I hate the very meaning of every word I know. — Roy Blount Jr.

Usually, Shakespeare gives me goose bumps. The guy knows everything. Like some ancient angel quill-ing out blueprints life. Hiding it in fiction. And usually I love the sound of the words, the way they dance on the page. Today, they fall flat. My attention bobbing in the cosmos. All free brain-space is marinating in gap month fizz. I chew my pen, candy-cane style. The million possibilities ahead make it hard to care about right now. I write my answers slowly, each letter carved in stone not ballpoint. I'm going to explore the world, find my passion, try everything! The fizz shoots up my spine and a smile sprouts. — Jolene Stockman

I finally decide I'm just going to stab him a thousand times with a ballpoint pen. — John Green

I write on a computer, but I've run the complete gambit. When I was very young, I wrote with a ballpoint pen in school notebooks. Then I got pretentious and started writing with a dip pen on parchment (I wrote at least a novel-length poem that way). Moved on to a fountain pen. Then a typewriter, then an electric self-correct. Then someone gave me a word processor and I was amazed at being able to fit ten pages on one of those floppy discs. — Charles De Lint

It would be a shame to get expelled from school (or arrested) for trying to stab the principal with a ballpoint pen just because he doesn't use enough deodorant. — Rick Riordan

I love signing autographs. I'll sign anything but veal cutlets. My ballpoint slips on veal cutlets. — Casey Stengel

I always write the same way. I always write with a yellow pad and a ballpoint pen on my bed. And then I go and type it up afterwards. I've always done that. Those things become habitual. — Woody Allen

Carrying a small notebook with you always, in your pocket or purse, along with a reliable ballpoint pen will enable you to jot down spot observations and quick character sketches before the first sharp impressions fade away. You'll need all kinds of story actors, because even picture books can include a wide range of ages, relationships, occupations, and nationalities. Learn to observe and analyze swiftly, wherever you are. — Lee Wyndham

When Reg died and we first looked into getting a new dog, I was adamant we should pick up a mongrel from an animal-rescue shelter. It's not only that they're usually healthier and have better temperaments, they also fit with my world view - I prefer a ballpoint to a fountain pen, a barber to a hair stylist, and camping over glamping. — Mark Barrowcliffe