Burroway Writing Quotes & Sayings

There's no white comic that sells tickets to black people like me. They're going to get their hair done, get a new outfit, and come out to see a white dude. — Gary Owen

There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell them.
As the great philosopher of uncertainty Yogi berra once said, Don't waste your time trying to fight forecasters, stock analysts, economists and social scientists, except to play pranks on them. — Nicholas Nassim Taleb

I am extremely sorry if I irritate people by asking them to smile ... ..I should be the one complaining because it kills me. — Amit Abraham

We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations. — Albert Einstein

Maelcum a rude boy," said the other, "an' a righteous tug pilot. — William Gibson

The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money. — Ambrose Bierce

Most writing is done between the mind and the hand, not between the hand and the page. — Janet Burroway

Reject without regret whatever seems on reflection wrongheaded, dull, destructive, or irrelevant to your vision. It's just as important to be able to discriminate between helpful and unhelpful criticism as it is to be able to write. — Janet Burroway

The human desire to know why is as powerful as the desire to know what happened next, and it is a desire of a higher order. — Janet Burroway

Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing. — Janet Burroway

I believe conspiracy theories are part of a larger conspiracy to distract us from the real conspiracy. String theory. — Andy Kindler

The mystique and the false glamour of the writing profession grow partly out of a mistaken belief that people who can express profound ideas and emotions have ideas and emotions more profound than the rest of us. It isn't so. The ability to express is a special gift with a special craft to support it and is spread fairly equally among the profound, the shallow, and the mediocre. — Janet Burroway

I was always chasing Taylor, trying to keep up with him. — Blake Griffin

I knew I could make a good living working in the mills, ... I decided I didn't want to fuss with the rest of it, so I hitch-hiked back home. — Chuck Knox

Give me a break. — John Stossel

It's the edgier option, of course, to believe that all government officials are corrupt liars and that our democracies are akin to totalitarian regimes. But if journalists take that approach too far, they might be surprised to wake up one day and find that corrupt liars in real totalitarian regimes have taken advantage of their blinkered rebellion against the status quo, and that the imagined devils they heralded emerge from the darkness in shapes they hadn't anticipated. ~ THE END — Jeremy Duns

I was looking at books and reading the indexes and finding a next book and reading that book, and then from that index ... It was a version of surfing the internet before the internet. I was surfing the New York Public Library. It was back when you had to fill out a form and put it in a chute. — Lisa Yuskavage

In order to have a conversation with someone you must reveal yourself. — James A. Baldwin

The only justification for writing a novel is that it should be wonderful. Adequate is inadequate. — Janet Burroway

Oh, alas, alas for his debauched children, flesh of his flesh, heir to all his failings and none of his strenghts! ... was it hard to judge a ten-year-old boy in this way? Yes, of course it was, but these were not boys. They were little gods, the despots of the future: born, unfortunately, to rule. He loved them. They would betray him. They were the lights of his life. They would come for him while he slept. The little assfuckers. He was waiting for their moves. — Salman Rushdie

Good girls like myself need subversion. Being solemn, I aspire to comedy. Being a novelist, I aspire to the musical. Being organized, I aspire to luminous chaos. Loving the power of grammar and the fine distinctions of language, I seek the part of the mind I didn't know was there, the part 'sheer,' 'no-manfathomed,' 'cliffs of fall. — Janet Burroway

In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic. — Phil Ochs