William Irwin Thompson Quotes

Thanks to secondary education and the Internet, we're all knowledgeable now - if knowledge means the accumulation of facts. Curators are those who know how to maneuver around that knowledge.

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing.

The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age, since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information by throwing in the reader's way piles of lumber in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed.

To weigh and evaluate a vast grid of information, much of it meaningless, and to arrive at sensible, if erroneous, conclusions, is a skill not to be sneezed at.

But that initial, comet-blazing-across-the-sky, Big Idea is only the beginning. Each book is composed of a mosaic of thousands of little ideas, ideas that invariably come to me at two in the morning when my alarm is set for seven.

I'm not one of these people who is sour about academia. I'm very lucky not to be in academia, but I am an absolute parasite. While I was writing my book on comparative philosophy I was drawing on some fantastic scholars - university based people. The academy is absolutely necessary, but there should also be a role for those bringing it together. It's such a frustration sometimes.

We all have so much access to the information on the Internet and in books, but we don't necessarily get that information in a usable way so that we can turn information into action.

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.

Of writing many books there is no end.

So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!

Theorists write all the popular books on science: Heinz Pagels, Frank Wilczek, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, et al. And why not? They have all that spare time.

The danger is to stupidly believe that depicting facts gives us much insight. If facts were the only thing that counted, the telephone directory would be the book of books.

I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness.

Experience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes.

And I thought, eight years ago, when I began carefully charting the progress of American Gods, nervously dipping my toes into the waters of blogging, would I have imagined a future in which, instead of recording the vicissitudes of bringing a book into the world, I would be writing about not-even-interestingly missing cups of cold camomile tea? And I thought, yup. Sounds about right. Happy Eighth birthday, blog.

Perhaps, it is just as well to be rash and foolish for a while. If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would be written at all. It might be better to ask yourself "Why?" afterwards than before. Anyway, the force from somewhere in Space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.

Books can truly change our lives: the lives of those who read them, the lives of those who write them. Readers and writers alike discover things they never knew about the world and about themselves.

Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library-and a pen warmed up in hell.

OF writing many books there is no end; And I who have written much in prose and verse For others' uses, will write now for mine,- Will write my story for my better self, As when you paint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is.

We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves. If it wasn't for our longing for these things, I doubt the novel or the short story would exist in its current form. I'm not going to say much more on the topic. Just remember: In dictatorships, only one person is really allowed to speak. And when I write a book or a story, I too am the only one speaking, no matter how I hide behind my characters.

As I do not live in an age when rustling black skirts billow about me, and I do not carry an ebony stick to strike the floor in sharp rebuke, as this is denied me, I rap out a sentence in my note book and feel better. If a grandmother wants to put her foot down, the only safe place to do it these days is in a note book.

The most reward experience is having another writer come up to you and say that they started writing because they read my books. That is how writing as a profession continues: readers becomes writers who inspire new readers.

I got a damn good mind to write a book about all the feelings that I have inside about all these things that happened in our life that we're making happen and letting it happen when it shouldn't be happening.

You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.

Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.