Dodie Smith Quotes

It was a really strange and unique sort of process for me to adapt my own book.

There's still a strange moment with every book when I move from the position of writer to the position of reader and I suddenly see my words with the eyes of the cold public. It gives me a terrible sense of exposure, as if I'd gotten sunburned.

What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be held together by the strength of its style, just as the earth, suspended in the void, depends on nothing external for its support.

When I'm talking to someone I think 'can I use this dialogue in a book,'" said Luis. "If the answer is no I try talking to someone else.

When I'm writing a book, generally I start with the mood and setting, along with a couple of specific images—things that have come into my head, totally abstracted from any narrative, that I've fixated on. After that, I construct a world, or an area, into which that general setting, that atmosphere, and the specific images I've focused on can fit.

There is no book of mine that I reject. That does not mean that I find them good.

I try to write books that are different from the books I've already written. I think one of the thing I really try to do is reinvent how a novel can be written.

I think that every reader on earth has a list of cherished books as unique as their fingerprints... I think that, as you age, you tend to gravitate towards the classics, but those aren't the books that give you the same sort of hope for the world that a cherished book does.

Immensely clever and libidinously hilarious.The most astonishing thing about Love in a Dead Language is its ingenious construction. Insofar as any printed volume can lay claim to being a multimedia work, this book earns that distinction.

While a book has got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the reader it's got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the writer as well.

What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore it knows it's not fooling a soul.

A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author’s thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it.

This splendid book discusses how, in the last two hundred fifty years, large numbers of people have achieved levels of well-being that were previously available only to a few individuals, and how this achievement has given rise to equally unprecedented inequalities. Unique in its focus and scope, exceptional knowledge and coherence, and careful argumentation, The Great Escape is highly illuminating and a delight to read.

It's such a unique story. Book of Joshua in the Bible wasn't always my favorite book, by the way. Only some ago did I realize that this book covers a seven-year period in the history of ancient Israel in which they literally went undefeated.They did have one setback, but outside of that, they defeated over 30 kings. They recaptured the Promised Land. They did what their ancestors said they could not.

Everything in this book may be wrong. - The Savior's Manual

Everyone has a set of presuppositions: what gender is, what it's not. And they may not write them out or they may not be in theoretical books published by Routledge, but they have a theory.

The Book of Revelation, difficult as it may be for "literalists," becomes much simpler when we read it typologically, as a mosiac of allusions to Old Testament prophecy.

The words in this book are all phooey. When you say them, your lips will make slips and back flips and your tongue may end up in Saint Looey!

Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.

I am very privileged and honored when someone chooses to read a book, especially a book of mine.

In this box are all the words I know… Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is use them well and in the right places.

His books are exciting and powerful and — if I may filch the word from the booksy ones — pulsing.

If you put a pink cover on something, critics make a certain set of assumptions and may not even read the book. But my readers are happy with it.

I knew what I wanted to do when I set out. I knew that I wanted to write a book that told the story, obviously. I wanted it be comedy first, because I felt like there already had been childhood druggy stories that were very serious, and I felt that the unique thing here was that I was a comic and I could tell the story with some levity, and I have been laughing at these stories my whole life.

It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along the shore.