Hassenfeld Institute Quotes & Sayings

Imaginative writing has always been a solitary and indeed a somewhat antisocial activity. Apprenticeship existed, no doubt, but it was an apprenticeship to books and not to living masters of the craft. — Madison Smartt Bell

Conformity is a type of calm where you hover motionless on the edge of a scream that never comes. — Bryant McGill

Northern Sweden holds a special kind of magic. It's cold, lonely, and the people are tough and silent, or so the stereotype says. This is Asa Larsson's home turf and I find as much joy in reading her closely observed descriptions of the environment, as in following her intriguing plots. — Camilla Lackberg

Heroin spread that soft blanket over everything. But once the blanket was ripped off, it took a layer of skin with it, leaving nothing but nerve ends screaming in the breeze. — Jerry Stahl

Our forebears are deserving of tribute for one indisputable reason, if for no other: without them we should not be here. Let us recognize that we are not the ultimate triumph but rather we are beads on a string. Let us behave with decency to the beads that were strung before us and hope modestly that the beads that come after us will not hold us of no account simply because we are dead. — Robertson Davies

When my son, James, was doing homework for school, he would have five or six windows open on his computer, Instant Messenger was flashing continuously, his cell phone was constantly ringing, and he was downloading music and watching the TV over his shoulder. I don't know if he was doing any homework, but he was running an empire as far as I could see, so I didn't really care. — Ken Robinson

From a psychological point of view, one can see how this is quite true. People until the age of around twenty five have frontal lobes of the brain that are not yet fully developed. The frontal lobe is the seat of reasoning. It is often because of this that an individual acts on impulse. It is only when a human begins to fear failure that the individual follows a more pragmatic path. Many people in the world have never realized or obtained the fruits of their dreams. — Summary Station

To have some idea what it's like, stand in the outside lane of a motorway, get your mate to drive his car at you at 95 mph and wait until he's 12 yards away, before you decide which way to jump. — Geoffrey Boycott

The heart's the trouble. It knows the monster but remembers the love. — Gemma Farrow