Picaresque Novel Quotes & Sayings

The novella is at once the most elegant and demanding form: a writer must balance the looseness of a novel with the concision of a short story, a feat that only the bravest and most talented of us can manage. In Brazil, Jesse Lee Kercheval proves, yet again, that she is exactly the right writer for the job. A wild American picaresque, Brazil snaps along briskly, yet feels full-fleshed, and brims with a sly wit and grace. — Lauren Groff

As the sailor locates his position on the sea by "shooting" the sun, so we may get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God. — A.W. Tozer

A garden path,' write the landscape architects Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell, and William Turnbull, 'can become the thread of a plot, connecting moments and incidents into a narrative. The narrative structure might be a simple chain of events with a beginning, middle, and end. It might be embellished with diversions, digressions, and picaresque twists, be accompanied by parallel ways (subplots), or deceptively fork into blind alleys like the althernative scenerios explored in a detective novel. — Rebecca Solnit

Courage without conscience is a wild beast. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Sometimes I imagine life itself as merely a long preparation and waiting, a long darkness of growth toward these adventures of the spirit, a picaresque novel, so to speak, in which the episodes are all inward. — May Sarton

A Spartan woman, as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him saying, "As a warrior of Sparta come back with your shield or on it." — Plutarch

Every picture's painted differently, every one has got a vision in their mind. That fills the heart with answers, and the missing piece that we hope to find. — Terri Clark

We need to apply the rules of 10,000 hours in order to achieve the level of a skill commensurate with the status of a world-class expert — Sunday Adelaja

If one believes in a god, one is a Theist. If one does not believe in a god, then one is an A-theist - he is without that belief. The distinction between atheism and theism is entirely, exclusively, that of whether one has or has not a belief in God. — Chapman Cohen

Your worth is not determined by your appearance, and your worth is not determined by what others think of you. I know those are easy words to say, and hard to feel. I am still working on this myself. But I am here working on it alongside you. — Kristin Kreuk

As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters a stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of success reached Kutuzov's cheerless staff with the galloping advent of all these brilliant young men. — Leo Tolstoy

Music was the first art form I ever had. — Robert David Hall

One hundred years ago, people were faced with the choice of learning to read or remaining illiterate laborers who would be left behind as have-nots in a rapidly modernizing world. In the coming century, being able to command a world that will be thoroughly computerized will set apart those who can live successfully in the future from those who will be utterly left behind. — Yishan Wong

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it. — Sydney J. Harris

Occasionally I like a really good pair of shoes. A pair of leather shoes from Gieves & Hawkes in England, Buckshot Brogue, they look really sick. — Ian Astbury

Things like this don't happen all that often in one lifetime. This is the magnificent world of a picaresque novel. Just brace yourself and enjoy the smell of evil. We're shooting the rapids. And when we go over the falls, let's do it together in grand style! — Haruki Murakami

Clean and acceptable. It would be something to know what that felt like, even for an hour or two. — Marilynne Robinson

Some people ripen, some rot. — Marlena De Blasi