Quill Quotes & Sayings

Words, words, word. Once, I had the gift. I could make love out of words as a potter makes cups of clay. Love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. For sixpence a line, I could cause a riot in a nunnery. But now
I have lost my gift. It's as if my quill is broken, as if the organ of my imagination has dried up, as if the proud -illegible word- of my genius has collapsed. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Oh, nature's noblest gift, my grey goose quill, Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, Torn from the parent bird to form a pen, That mighty instrument of little men. — Lord Byron

Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire. Don't let the pen banish you from yourself. — Gloria E. Anzaldua

Hey," said Locke, scratching his stubble absently with his quill. "That sounds suspiciously like wisdom, damn your eyes. Why must you always flounce about being wiser than me?" "Doesn't require much conscious effort. — Scott Lynch

The hand that once wielded both sword and axe now aches after an evening of the quill. When I wipe the tip of one clean, I often wonder how many buckets of ink I have used in a lifetime. How many words have I set down on paper or vellum, thinking to trap the truth thereby? And of those words, how many have I myself consigned to the flames as worthless and wrong? I do as I have done so many times. I write, I sand the wet ink, I consider my own words. Then I burn them. Perhaps when I do so, the truth goes up the chimney as smoke. Is it destroyed, or set free in the world? I do not know. I — Robin Hobb

I need to buy some postcards to send to Mom and Dad,' said Ian, heading up the steas to the Captain's Quill Bookshop. 'I also want to send some funny ones to Jackson and some of my other friends.'
'I'll get one for my mom,' said Zoe.
But as she sorted through the postcards, she remembered her mom was travling all summer without a fixed address, and email was a no-go because Granddad didn't own a computer. She didn't have the addresses of any of her friends with her, either-not that she had many friends. — Christine Brodien-Jones

A small brazier glowed near the monk's left hand. On a lecturn before him lay pots of paints, brushes, a quill, a pen, a knife, a sizeable handbell, the tooth of some animal
and a piece of parchment.
It was the parchment that commanded the room. Until he saw it Len didn't realize how starved he had been of colour. Villagers dressed in various shades of brown and beige, like their furniture and fields and now, here, was an irruption of the rainbow, as if a charm of goldfinches had landed on the manuscript and been transfixed. — Diana Norman

Thoth, Hermes, the stylus,
the palette, the pen, the quill endure,
though our books are a floor
of smouldering ash under our feet. — Hilda Doolittle

The quill swirled and lunged over the page, in a slow but relentless three steps forward, two steps back sort of process and finally came to a full stop in a tiny pool of its own ink. Then, Louis Phelypeaux, First Compte de Pontchartrain, raised the nib, let it hover for an instant, as if gathering his forces, and hurled it backwards along the sentence, tiptoeing over "i's" and slashing through "t's" and "x's" nearly tripping over an umlaut, building speed and confidence while veering through a slalom course of acute and grave accents, pirouetting through cedillas and carving vicious snap-turns through circumflexes. It was like watching the world's greatest fencing master dispatch twenty opponents with a single continuous series of maneuvers. — Neal Stephenson

I suppose this is your way of telling me that you are outrageously happy?'
Quill nodded. 'Of course.'
'Living with you is an act of interpretation, do you know that?'
'Living with you is ... bliss. Did you know that? — Eloisa James

A window smoky with lavender twilight arched over a desk littered with books and weeping columns of burning wax. Over the desk hunched a sooty-headed character. The scratching paused as he dipped a quill into an inkwell that sat beside an old-fashioned black telephone with large finger holes for dialing. — Maria Alexander

Think of all that hard work our founding fathers put in - the revolutionizing, the three-fifths compromising, having to write the entire Constitution with a quill - and yet they neglected to include the right to vote. — Mo Rocca

You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic. — Ellen DeGeneres

I scared a little porcupine
and caught a quill in my behind.
It hurt so badly in my tail,
but tugging on it made me yell.
The porcupine was still around,
so I complained. He simply frowned
and said, Stop whining! Look and see
how many quills are stuck on me! — Richelle E. Goodrich

There is no remedy for this poison,' Sudhakar said. 'You must live with the consequences, as must I.'
'Then why did you let her have it?' Quill said savagely. 'You knew she was impulsive. You should have guessed she might take it herself!'
Sudhakar looked at him. 'Now, why would that occur to me? I saw a young woman consumed with anxiety for her husband, prepared to ruin her marriage in order to save him from further suffering. I saw nothing self-destructive about her.'
'She thought it was harmless,' Quill whispered harshly. 'She had no idea. You shouldn't have given it to her.'
'Do you think she is a child? She is a grown woman. Her rash actions are her own.'
It was only when Quill fixed him with a brutal gaze that he realized that Sudhakar was also suffering. — Eloisa James

Two dozen
and yet you killed all but one?" The provost arched a brow and set her quill down again as if unwilling to record a falsehood.
"Dear lady, I killed them from youngest child to oldest woman, and when I was done I blunted three axes dismembering their corpses. I am Jorg of Ancrath
I burned ten thousand in Gelleth and didn't think it too many. — Mark Lawrence

After the three of them got back to the Portakabin, while Quill and Ross started to add the details from the manuscript pages to the Ops Board, Sefton got out his special notebook and checked through everything he'd written down about his encounter with ... whatever Brutus had been. I was proceeding in a mystical direction when I encountered a six-foot-two Roman male, with whom I shared a certain sexual tension. — Paul Cornell

Just because you've got the emotional rang of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have,' said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again. — J.K. Rowling

Once she had thrown a square of birch bark into the fire when her father came in the door. He might then have asked her why her quill pen had shaped a row of straight and crooked question marks and after each one an exclamation point
in rows of ten, perhaps forty running along
?! ?! ?! ?!
arranged in pairs or couples. If he had asked her what is this folderol and what can this nonsense mean she would have said the same she said when shaping them with her pen, one pair, one couple after another. Each question mark stands for my ignorance and asks if I may learn and know the answer. And each exclamation point stands for my surprise at how little I know, my amazement at my vast ignorance, my utter astonishment at how much there is for me to learn. — Carl Sandburg

Take any writer you want in the 19th century: they wrote with quill pens, dipping a piece of goose feather in ink and writing. And yet we read those novels today, and if we're sensitive to them, we respond to them with an immediacy that is stronger than anything written today on a word processor. — Walter Murch

Were you acquainted with me, you would know that my failings are equal to my victories. On my own, I am no more than a pauper. It is the Prince for whom I live and for whom I fight. He raised me from the mire and made me a son. I will aspire to serve Him to the utmost, and perhaps my duty to Him will be fulfilled more as a herald than as a warrior, for if my quill and ink capture your attention and cause you to ponder the chronicles of this great kingdom and the story of the Prince, then I am content. — Chuck Black

I pen you words from my heart
neither paper nor pen would do
as I lay them out in flowery fonts
what more could you ask for
as I am writing in your heart
the love that I want to endure
I am no Keats nor am I anyone but me
a poetess longing for your touch
get lost with me in my words
as I serenade you with a forever quill. — Chimnese Davids

Jemmy dipped the quill in beet juice and continued scribbling. "I'll tell him you've got reserved seats in Hell."
"Aye! That's the ticket! — Sid Fleischman

The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation. — A.J.P. Taylor

One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their out-reaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it. — Herman Melville

The funny thing about writing is I think a lot of people assume that you're sitting in a garret with a quill pen for hour after hour. — Lincoln Child

That's very cool. Absolutely! You want to know where this guy came from, but you also want to know about the relationship between him and Quill, and how they ended up living together, for the last 18 or 19 years, without killing one another. He's a strong young man, and it's because of Yondu. — Michael Rooker

Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand! — Herman Melville

A wish is a good place to start but then you have to get off your butt and make it happen. You have to pick up a quill and write your own damn story. — Suzanne Selfors

I can endure many things, but cold and wet is my Achilles' heel. I could withstand the heat of the desert or the tropical forests described by travelers to the southern regions of America without incident, I think. But unrelenting rain and cold I simply cannot abide."

"How unfortunate that you should be born in England, then," Quill said with a laugh. — Manda Collins

I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom. — Jay Dratler

The first of a thousand lies. Truth flowed to Micah Quill, was sucked in and disappeared, and emerged again looking ever so much like it used to, but changed subtly, at the edges, where none would notice, so that simple truth became a complicated fabric indeed, one that could wrap you up so tightly and close you off from the air until you suffocated in it. — Orson Scott Card

Graveyards were usually, in his team's experience, a bad idea. This one was full of greenish lights that danced between the graves, and there were a couple of swaying figures, one an emaciated husk with glowing eyes who had taken to ... yes, there he was again this morning, like every morning.
Quill tiredly raised his hand to return the wave. — Paul Cornell

Her laugh did something to him, Quill realized. Touched some part of him that admired her indefatigable spirit. Despite her discomfort and distress at being drenched, she was in possession of the sort of temperament that did not allow the petty annoyances of life to dampen her spirit. — Manda Collins

Our doubts are traitors and make us
lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. In other words, a
wish is a good place to start but then you have to get off your butt and make it
happen. You have to pick up a quill and write your own damn story. (Mimi Wallingford) — Suzanne Selfors

Unable and crippled I am
As I gaze into the vastness
The vastness that harbors your praise
And glories of the best of creation ...
If I tried to spell..
A drop of ink from your love
Ma quill would burn in shame
for your love match no words ... ya rasoolullah! — Anila Aboo

Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a "wire edge" that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said no, it will come off when the enamel does" - which was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds - but they only eat them once. — Mark Twain

I'm glad we will not be forced to live by your quill, because I am rather used to having food on the table. But, I appreciate the effort behind those words. — Cynthia Hand

When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when you stop writing, you find that's all you are - a spine, a row of rattling vertebrae, dried out like an old quill pen. — Hilary Mantel

Anyone who claims that weapons like semi-automatics are so modern and unique that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to them would also have to believe that the First Amendment protects only writing done with quill pens on parchment paper, since those were the norm back then. How could we expect the Founders to have ever imagined the world we live in today? — Glenn Beck

For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing. — Virginia Woolf

While he writes, I feel as if he is drawing me; or not drawing me, drawing on me - drawing on my skin - not with the pencil he is using, but with an old-fashioned goose pen, and not with the quill end but with the feather end. As if hundreds of butterflies have settled all over my face, and are softly opening and closing their wings. — Margaret Atwood

from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl - a long quill, and a roll of parchment. — J.K. Rowling

I'm too old-fashioned to use a computer. I'm too old-fashioned to use a quill. — Christopher Plummer

Maine should be pleased that its animal is not a waverer, and rather than fight, lets the primed quill fall. Shallow oppressor, intruder, insister, you have found a resister. — Marianne Moore

I still use quill and parchment. I do e-mails, and I write, but I don't go around surfing too much. — Oscar Nunez

Serena cast a knowing glance at her cousin, and Quill found himself feeling guilty for things he'd not even properly imagined yet. Not that he would, he reminded himself firmly. Whatever spark of attraction he might feel for Miss Wareham and her sharp wit was something that he had no intention of acting on - no matter how tempting her habit of biting her lower lip might be. — Manda Collins

Be circumspect how you offend schollers, for knowe, a serpent tooth bites not so ill, as dooth a schollers angrie quill. — John Florio

I had taken up my quill to begin writing many times before now, but I always abandoned it quickly: each time I was overcome with fear. Yes, may God forgive me, but the letters of the alphabet frighten me terribly. They are sly, shameless demons - and dangerous! You open the inkwell, release them: they run off - and how will you ever get control of them again! They come to life, join, separate, ignore your commands, arrange themselves as they like on the paper - black, with tails and horns. You scream at them and implore them in vain: they do as they please. Prancing, pairing up shamelessly before you, they deceitfully expose what you did not wish to reveal, and they refuse to give voice to what is struggling, deep within your bowels, to come forth and speak to mankind. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The old days of an inner circle of like-minded souls communicating with parchment and quill pens are gone. Sooner or later most things will be revealed. — Robert Harris

Is there any way to check and see if Nick and Daisy were ever at Hecate? They must have had different names or you'd remember them."
I don't know why I was holding out hope that Dad would be all, "Why, yes, let me check the Hecate Enrollment Roster 9000 computer database." Those lists were probably written on pieces of parchment with quill feathers. — Rachel Hawkins

I'd rather die fighting to keep us free to do as we wish, fighting to be free to come and go as we please, fighting so we no longer need to hide. Fighting the fear that all of you were programmed since birth to have. Fighting against Quill's bigotry, which says brains and brawn are better, or more important, than creativity.
Marcus Today — Lisa McMann

When the silence comes and the echoes of former life fades, what will have mattered will be, one made the world a bit better 'fore their de-berthing. Writing, needs none, but the initial push of heart and passion, enabling the story to take flight, doves to clouds, clouds to doves, then to faithfully follow its unfolding through the quill transcribed, this self-perpetuating engine once born, with no further fuel required, to lift others in the journey, through time, for all time. — Tom Althouse

If I had me a nice goose quill and a pot o' maester's ink, I could write down that me member was long and thick as me arm, wouldn't make it so. — George R R Martin

DI Cartwright: The cat is booby trapped? DI Quill: Welcome to my world. — Paul Cornell

The surgeons like to bleed a man, to let ill humours out, so that he may face the world anew. Perhaps they should just hand him a quill and let the poisons spill from him whilst he keeps his blood for its intended purpose. — Mark Lawrence

I spend the rest of the night doing schoolwork. After striking a match and lighting a candal, I sit down at my desk with my quill pen and parchment to write an essay for my ethics class on the legalities of fan fiction. — Fanny Merkin

She was enveloped from head to foot in a raccoon fur coat, with a jaunty hat of the same, trimmed only with a bright quill feather. — Carolyn Wells

The thought hath good leggs, and the quill a good tongue. — George Herbert

Craig inscribed something in the journal and Bob walked over to study the entry. "Does the name Bob Ford mean anything to you?

Craig dipped his quill in the ink bottle and scripted cursively on a brown blotter. "Is that your actual name or your alias?"

"Actual," said Bob, and he grinned with delight when he saw the name recorded in Craig's elegant calligraphy. "Pretty soon all of America will know who Bob Ford is. — Ron Hansen

The great William Shakespeare said, "What's in a name?" He also said, "Call me Billy one more time and I will stab you with this ink quill. — Cuthbert Soup

What followed were instructions for casting the spell itself and a diagram for laying the components out. Altin didn't like the secrecy thing, but a quick glance at the spell Greater Common Tongue showed that it was forty-three pages long. He didn't think he had that kind of time or expertise, so he decided to stick with the six-page version for now. He realized that getting cuttings of their hair was likely going to be an interesting trick as well. And he needed his quill pen, parchment and pot of ink, which meant he had to go back to the tower. He wondered how they were going to take his making another trip into the waterfall-pot room so soon, but he had little other choice. — John Daulton

The fangs of a bear, and the tusks of a wild boar, do not bite worse and make deeper gashes than a goose-quill sometimes; no, not even the badger himself, who is said to be so tenacious of his bite that he will not give over his hold till he feels his teeth meet and the bones crack. — James Howell

My writing tools were my most precious belongings. My best quill pen was made from a raven's feather ... I was often so poor that I could not pay my mantua-maker, but I always invested in the best ink and parchment. I smoothed it with pumice stone till it was as white and fine as my own skin, ready to absorb the rapid scratching of my quill — Kate Forsyth

Now I protest to thee, gentle reader, that I entirely dissent from Francisco de Ubeda in this matter, and hold it the most useful quality of my pen, that it can speedily change from grave to gay, and from description and dialogue to narrative and character. So that if my quill displays no other properties of its mother-goose than her mutability, truly I shall be well pleased; and I conceive that you, my worthy friend, will have no occasion for discontent. From — Walter Scott

You stole my heart before I could give it to you. — Luke Taylor

With a goose-quill and a few sheets of paper, I mock myself of the universe. They say I am the son of a courtesan; it may be so, but I have the heart of a King. I live free, I enjoy myself, I can call myself happy. — Pietro Aretino

O thrice-romantic Master, would you not rather take long walks in a blooming cherry tree alley with your friend and listen to Schubert in the evenings? Would you not rather write by candlelight with a quill pen? Like Faust, would you not rather sit over a retort in the hopes of crafting a new homunculus? That is your desination, there. A house awaits you, with an aging servant; the candles are already lit and will soon extinguish as dawn inevitably arrives. Take this path, Master, and farewell! I must go. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Her punishment quill is of her own invention PARENTAGE: — J.K. Rowling

In the spring of 1990 I flew to Aspen, Colorado, to cover a summit meeting between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President George Herbert Walker Bush. This fairly routine political event took on sudden significance when, on the evening before the talks were scheduled to begin, Saddam Hussein announced that the independent state of Kuwait had, by virtue of a massive deployment of military force, become a part of Iraq. We were not to know that this act - and the name Saddam Hussein - would dominate international politics for the next decade and more, but it was still possible to witness something extraordinary: the sight of Mrs. Thatcher publicly inserting quantities of lead into George Bush's pencil. The spattering quill of a Ralph Steadman would be necessary to do justice to such a macabre yet impressive scene. — Christopher Hitchens

Gabby seemed to have made up her mind. 'I certainly wish I could help you, Lord Breksby,' she cooed, tilting her head to the side.
Quill watched cynically from the other side of the room as Breksby melted in front of his eyes. At least he wasn't alone in being bowled over by Miss Gabrielle Jerningham. Although he rather thought he, Quill, hadn't been lied to yet. If so, he reminded himself, it was only a matter of time. — Eloisa James

Do not shout at me, Mr. Quill," said John [Adams]. "Justice may be blind, but she is not deaf. — Orson Scott Card

Quill pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing Ivy would stop using the word "nude. — Manda Collins

He writes so well he makes me feel like putting my quill back in my goose. — Fred Allen

The Deer don't dineWhen a Wolf's about,And the PorcupineSticks his quill-points out. — Arthur Guiterman

But the boy was not cheated by her ignorance. He was not intensely interested in answers, the things themselves were enough. So he ran on, holding the leaf by its twig, or feather by its quill, and whereas his mother thought mostly of arriving, discovery kept him in a state of endless being. — Patrick White

Prophecy fulfilled:
Peter's life is a quill and the ink is his blood. — Jonah Books

I use a quill pen dipped in India ink. I also like Faber-Castell brush pens and Pigma Micron pens. And I work on Duo-Shade board. — Steve Breen

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

You haven't given me any ink," he said.
"Oh, you won't need ink," said Professor Umbridge with the merest suggestion of a laugh in her voice.
Harry placed the point of the quill on the paper and wrote: I must not tell lies.
He let out a gasp of pain. The words had appeared on the parchment in what appeared to be shining red ink. At the same time, the words had appeared on the back of Harry's right hand, cut into his skin as though traced there by a scalpel - yet even as he stared at the shining cut, the skin healed over again, leaving the place where it had been slightly redder than before but quite smooth.
Harry looked around at Umbridge. She was watching him, her wide, toadlike mouth stretched in a smile.
"Yes?"
"Nothing," said Harry quietly. — J.K. Rowling

I feel as if I can think only when I see the words flowing from the nib of my quill, that my thoughts make sense only when they are black ink on cream paper. I love the sensation of a thought in my head and the vision of the word on the page. — Philippa Gregory

The quill has pricked my soul and each word bleeds onto the parchment of my life. My freedom is in my words, therefore, I write.

— Mona Bethke

laid out the quill, ink, sand, and paper. — Susan Martins Miller

Can a split quill write fair script?
Can a blunt axe cut wood for the fire?
Can a cripple please a lady? — Juliet Marillier

You're wrong," Lord Dudley said. "You've always been a fool."
"The fool thinks he is wise," G retorted. "But the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
That was a great line, he thought. He tried to remember where he'd stashed the quill and paper. — Cynthia Hand

Will Peter be joining us for tea, do you think?'
'I doubt it. Peter rarely returns home before late in the evening.'
'Oh.'
Quill felt as if he had told a baby chick that his favorite dish was roast fowl. — Eloisa James

As Harry and Ron rounded the clump of trees behind which Harry had first heard the dragons roar, a witch leapt out from behind them.
It was Rita Skeeter. She was wearing acid-green robes today; the Quick-Quotes Quill in her hand blended perfectly against them.
"Congratulations, Harry!' she said beaming at him. "I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How do you feel now about the fairness of the scoring?"
"Yeah, you can have a word," said Harry savagely. "Goodbye! — J.K. Rowling

Free speech has remained a quintessential American ideal, even as our society has moved from the ink quill to the touch screen. — Marvin Ammori

What does Mad-Eye say happened?" asked Mr. Weasley, unscrewing the ink bottle, loading up his quill, and preparing to take notes. Mr. Diggory's head rolled its eyes. "Says he heard an intruder in his yard. Says he was creeping toward the house, but was ambushed by his dustbins." "What did the dustbins do?" asked Mr. Weasley, scribbling frantically. "Made one hell of a noise and fired rubbish everywhere, as far as I can tell," said Mr. Diggory. "Apparently one of them was still rocketing around when the please-men turned up - " Mr. Weasley groaned. "And what about the intruder?" "Arthur, you know Mad-Eye," said Mr. Diggory's head, rolling its eyes again. "Someone creeping into his yard in the dead of night? More likely there's a very shell-shocked cat wandering around somewhere, covered in potato peelings. But if the Improper Use of Magic lot get their hands on Mad-Eye, he's had it - think of his record - — J.K. Rowling

The word processor is a better tool than a quill pen because you can do so much more with it, but on the other hand, what you have to say and how you say it is the ultimate determination. — Walter Murch

I was starting to wonder if the sort of memorization practiced by mental athletes was not something like the peacock's tail: impressive not for its utility, but for its profound lack of utility. Were these ancient techniques anything more than "intellectual fossils," as the historian Paulo Rossi once put it, fascinating for what they tell us about the minds of a bygone era, but as out of place in our modern world as quill pens and papyrus scrolls? — Joshua Foer

It was just that - Gabby's common sense came to the rescue. Quill was an uncommonly handsome man. His eyes made her feel weak in the knees and warm in the belly. / The problem, Gabby rationalized, is that Father never allowed me to have anything to do with men. So now I am overcome by the species in general. — Eloisa James

As the knight of the quill never ventured into the fight, and only snuffed the battle afar, he knew nothing accurately of battles, but managed to pick up a few real or supposed incidents from the wounded and from stragglers. — Daniel H. Hill

I love how easy it is to run my business, Writing Workshops Los Angeles, with the help of email and my website. I love that I don't have to use cuneiform, a quill, or a typewriter to write my novels - I love to write on my laptop! — Edan Lepucki

But the way to wealth through the quill seems long ... — Elizabeth Charles

The brown earth, the torn, blasted earth, with a greasy shine under the sun's rays; the earth is the background of this restless, gloomy world of automatons, our gasping is the scratching of a quill, our lips are dry, our heads are debauched with stupor - thus we stagger forward, and into our pierced and shattered souls bores the torturing image of the brown earth with the greasy sun and the convulsed and dead soldiers, who lie there - it can't be helped - who cry and clutch at our legs as we spring away over them. We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill. — Erich Maria Remarque

Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless - discuss. — J.K. Rowling

Troy sighed with frustration. "Let me get this straight. We're stuck in the story of Romeo and Juliet and we can't get home without a magic charm from Shakespeare's quill, which doesn't exist in this world. However, we might be able to get home when the story ends, but if Romeo and Juliet don't meet, then we don't have a story. More important, we don't have an ending."
Friar Laurence tsk tsked. He placed his speckled hand on Troy's forehead. "Bless you, my son, but a fever has muddled your mind. — Suzanne Selfors

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?"
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest though bold Robin Hood
Would, wit his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can
"I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. — John Keats

Bismilahir-rahmanir-rahim!
I call to witness the ink, the quill, and the script,
which flows from the quill;
I call to witness the faltering shadows of the sinking evening,
the night and all she enlivens;
I call to witness the moon when she waxes, and the sunrise when it dawns.
I call to witness the Resurrection Day and the soul that accuses itself;
I call to witness time, the beginning and end of all things - to witness that every man always suffers loss. — Mesa Selimovic