The Last Word And Other Stories Quotes & Sayings

The reason why she had chosen journalism was because of those who had done so before her. Stalwart women and men who reported stories in the days before the Internet. Before it was fashionable to learn Mass Communication. A long time before being a TV reporter and calling up your family to see your face beamed to their homes was an in thing. They were those who had left their families behind as they pursued the truth, opting to go to jail when the government hounded them to reveal their sources. Men and women that would rather quit than write editorials the management wanted them to write. Journalists who never wrote a word they would have to disown. Journalists who took their last breath as they wrote an article was true to what they believed in. They would never sit down and take stock of the stories they had covered and written saying, So what if twenty of these are non-stories, I at least had five I believed in. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

It was terrible and awful when someone left you. You could move on, do the best you could, but like Eli had said, an ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have to have the last word. — Sarah Dessen

I was facing him before the last word was out, but I should have been dead by then. In a way I did die, right there, all that time ago, and this is a ghost who has been telling you stories and drinking your wine. You don't understand. Never mind. — Peter S. Beagle

If I couldn't broadcast baseball games, I think I would make a good impression on people. — Mackenzie Astin

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word. — Sarah Dessen

Tell me now, Angel, do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know." He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time. "O, Angel
I fear that means no!" said she, with a suppressed sob. "And I wanted so to see you again
so much, so much! What
not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so well? — Thomas Hardy

The origins of graph theory are humble, even frivolous. — Norman L. Biggs

The mistake that people make in the focusing illusion involves attention to selected moments and neglect of what happens at other times. The mind is good with stories, but it does not appear to be well designed for the processing of time. During the last ten years we have learned many new facts about happiness. But we have also learned that the word happiness does not have a simple meaning and should not be used as if it does. Sometimes scientific progress leaves us more puzzled than we were before. — Daniel Kahneman

Without warning, Packard reaches out
I think he's going to touch my cheek, but he slides his hand around the nape of my neck and pulls me to him, kissing me warm and strong, lips soft, breath like coffee. The kiss takes me by surprise. My whole body wants to follow deeper into him, but he pulls away, and we're looking into each other's eyes, and the moment stops. And everything seems to fall out beneath me.
"Good luck," he whispers.
"Packard
"
He opens the door. "It's okay."
I stare at the open door. It feels like a closed door. And I leave. — Carolyn Crane

True satisfaction and true justice, in my belief, will only come for Americans, and for that matter now for Spaniards and Turks and Saudis and Moroccans, when we put an end to terrorism. — Richard Armitage

I write books with words. Numerous words. Words that stomp and stare and crush and collapse and boogie and bang and scream and laugh and manipulate. My books are a storehouse of words that form paragraphs that form chapters that form stories that form thoughts that live on long after you've read the last word. — Brenda Sutton Rose

Each word was shaped with certainty, and I felt, more strongly than ever before in my life, that I had at last found my true path. I knew the story would change as I told it. No one can tell as tory without transforming it in some way; it is part of the magic of storytelling. Like the troubadors of the past, who hid their messages in poems, songs and fairy tales, I too would hide my true purpose [ ... ]
It was by telling stories that I would save myself. — Kate Forsyth

A person can do anything if they only will it strongly enough. — Leon Battista Alberti

I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too. — Paul Keating

Sometimes I'd like to have a conversation with a friend in a restaurant without feeling I'm being watched. At this rate I will have to go on holiday to Greenland. But maybe the Eskimos would know me. — Fernando Torres

The more we abandon ill-will and hatred, the easier it will be to meditate. — Ayya Khema

The Last Of England works with image and sound, a language which is nearer to poetry than prose. It tells its story quite happily in silent images, in contrast to a word-bound cinema ... — Derek Jarman

Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity ... edit one more time! — C.K. Webb

You can't go on running forever ... " "And you can't go on ... " Alfie desperately searched for the right word, " ... mopedding* forever! — David Walliams

I think that music is a very difficult art form in which to be avant-garde. When we sit down to listen to a piece of music, I think our implicit hope is that we're going to find it beautiful, or at least emotional, on some level. — Steven Soderbergh

But my point, Mattie - if I have a point, Mattie - is this: kind of try to live up to the best that's in you. If you give your word to people, let them know that they're getting the word of the best. If you room with some dopey girl at college, try to make her less dopey. If you're standing outside a theater and some old gal comes up selling gum, give her a buck if you've got a buck - but only if you can do it without patronizing her. That's the trick, baby.' -Last Day of the Last Furlough — J.D. Salinger

The managing editor shared Bernstein's fondness for doping things out on the basis of sketchy information. At the same time, he was cautious about what eventually went into print. On more than one occasion, he told Bernstein and Woodward to consider delaying a story or, if necessary, to pull it at the last minute if they had any doubts. 'I don't care if it's a word, a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, a whole story or an entire series of stories,' he said. 'When in doubt, leave it out.'
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

Other than that one year, Salon has been very cautious about the way it spends money. For instance, since last year, we've had virtually no marketing budget. It's just word of mouth. And our circulation continues to grow that way by breaking news stories. — David Talbot

We praise heroes as though they are rare, and yet we are always ready to blame another man for lack of heroism. — Graham Greene

A visitor is a friend, he brings news, good or bad, which is bread to the hungry minds in lonely places. A real friend who comes to the house is a heavenly messenger, who brings the panis angelorum. — Karen Blixen

Now why should there be a special word for a man with dark skin? There was no special word for a man with blue eyes, or large ears, or curly hair. — Isaac Asimov

The power of the word in Morocco belonged to men and to the authorities. No one asked the point of view of poor people or women. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

He knows I have a soft spot for RLS and not just because he was sick or because we have the same initials but because there's something impossibly romantic about him and because before he started writing Treasure Island he first drew a map of an unknown island and because he believed in invisible places and was one of the last writers to know what the word adventure means. I could give you a hundred reasons why RLS is The Man. Look in his The Art of Writing (Book 683, Chatto & Windus, London) where he says that no living people have had the influence on him as strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. Or when he says his greatest friend is D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers (Book 5, Regent Classics, London). RLS said: 'When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge, I take them like opium.' And when you read Treasure Island you feel you are casting off. That's the thing. You are casting off and leaving behind the ordinary dullness of the world. — Niall Williams

Anything about anyone is attractive as long as they're the kind of person who can be attractive however that comes about. Including scars. — Kristen Ashley