Quotes by Novelists

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. Faith Baldwin

Time Alteration

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid. Franz Kafka

Nature You Suffering Yourself World Free Holding Back Something Could Perhaps Very Hold Your Avoid Sufferings

Evil is whatever distracts. Franz Kafka

Evil Whatever

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found. Franz Kafka

Will Find Seek Seeks He Does Who Found

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it. Fyodor Dostoevsky

Old About Something Something New New Said Subject Cannot

If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once. Fyodor Dostoevsky

Every historian discloses a new horizon. George Sand

Every Horizon New Historian

Admiration and familiarity are strangers. George Sand

Strangers Admiration Familiarity

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. Gloria Naylor

Sometimes Old Father's Day Missed She Still Daddy Her

Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die. Gore Vidal

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. Gore Vidal

Enough Others Must Fail Succeed

The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments. Gustave Flaubert

Life Success Future You Challenge Glorious Despair Those Out Promise Rise Rather Feel Days Most Accomplishments So-Called Your Moments

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. Gustave Flaubert

History Ignorance Own Our Causes Times Us Slander

It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude. H. P. Lovecraft

Silence Mistake Solitude Darkness Horror Inextricably Fancy Associated

Adulthood is hell. H. P. Lovecraft

Hell Adulthood

We must realise that man's nature will remain the same so long as he remains man; that civilisation is but a slight coverlet beneath which the dominant beast sleeps lightly and ever ready to awake. To preserve civilisation, we must deal scientifically with the brute element, using only genuine biological principles. H. P. Lovecraft

Nature Man Will Long Beast Sleeps Beneath Slight Must Only Civilisation Remain Remains Brute He Lightly Principles Deal Genuine Ready Scientifically Dominant Same Realise Which Using Awake Element Ever Biological Preserve

I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about. H. P. Lovecraft

There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life. H. P. Lovecraft

Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth. Herman Melville

Love Friendship Truth First Sight Only Like Said Love At First Sight

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Herman Melville

Great Man Somewhere Never He Failed Who

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. Hermann Hesse

Wisdom Knowledge Communicate Live Find Through Wonders Cannot Fortified Teach