Hellmuth Matiasek Quotes & Sayings

At night the bottom of the valley looks like water, and the lamps in the little town lying along it like quivering reflections of the stars. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see something that the reader has not yet noticed, and he orients the reader's gaze so that she can see it for herself. The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth. It succeeds when it aligns language with the truth, the proof of success being clarity and simplicity. The truth can be known, and is not the same as the language that reveals it; prose is a window onto the world. The writer knows the truth before putting it into words; he is not using the occasion of writing to sort out what he thinks. Nor does the writer of classic prose have to argue for the truth; he just needs to present it. That is because the reader is competent and can recognize the truth when she sees it, as long as she is given an unobstructed view. The writer and the reader are equals, and the process of directing the reader's gaze takes the form of a conversation. — Steven Pinker

To read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another, from one action to another, from one level of a text to another. The text unveils itself before us, but never allows itself to be possessed; and instead of trying to possess it we should take pleasure in its teasing — David Lodge

When we are born we are magical and loving and full of wonder. But darkness and ignorance surround us at every corner. Until the day someone calls us a monster or a devil and we believe them. — Philip Ridley

On nights such as this, evil deeds are done. And good deeds, of course. But mostly evil, on the whole. On nights such as this, witches are abroad. Well, not actually abroad. They don't like the food and you can't trust the water and the shamans always hog the deckchairs. — Terry Pratchett

Even the most horribl e of nightmares is laced with the promise of dawn. — Richard Paul Evans

In Downing Street they called me 'Boss'. Civil servants would always call me 'Prime Minister'. — Tony Blair

I don't feel any part of religion. I think the Bible is God's gift of salvation that He gave me because I trusted in Him when I was six year-old. It was a gift and I didn't earn it. — Victoria Jackson

The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly. — Mike Leigh

Sometimes it was worth all the disadvantages of marriage just to have that: one friend in an indifferent world. — Erica Jong

The man of science, whether he knows it or not (most often, obviously, he does know it), whether he wishes it or not (ordinarily he does not wish it), cannot help but be a realist in the medieval sense of the term. He is distinguished from the philosopher only by the fact that the philosopher must, in addition, explain and justify the realism practiced by science — Lev Shestov

Yet my sadness is a comfort For it is natural and right And is what should fill the soul Whenever it thinks it exists — Fernando Pessoa