penamerican:

“We have a rich literature. But sometimes it’s a literature too ready to be neutralized, to be incorporated into the ambient noise. This is why we need the writer in opposition, the novelist who writes against power, who writes against the corporation or the state or the whole apparatus of assimilation. We’re all one beat away from becoming elevator music.” —Don DeLillo

“If you read one book a week, starting at the age of 5, and live to be 80, you will have read a grand total of 3,900 books, a little over one-tenth of 1 percent of the books currently in print.” — Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop (via prettybooks)

“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.” — Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (via helplesslyamazed)

theliterarysnob:

that70srpc:

I find that, when writing bios, it’s really helpful to look at a list or a chart like the one above. Picking two or three traits from each chart and building a character based around them will give you a really interesting bio, because they will serve as a reminder that characters need depth and dimension.

Independent and clever.

VS.

Independent, clever, pretentious, and stubborn.

The first combination doesn’t come with any flaws, whereas the second will provide a more dynamic character.

This advice reminds me of playing The Sims (yup I’m that much of a nerd). I once was advised that when choosing personality traits for your sims always make sure at least 1 out of 5 of the traits is something negative or undesirable. It’ll make your sim a lot more interesting and realistic.

The same is true for the characters in your story. There’s a reason why the term mary-sue is used with so much disdain.

vintageanchor:

“A person susceptible to ‘wanderlust’ is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.”

― Pico Iyer

“And all the books you’ve read have been read by other people. And all the songs you’ve loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that’s pretty to you is pretty to other people. and that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing ‘unity’.” — Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (via 4mbivalent)

“It’s a classic story that we want every teenager in the world to come see,” Ileen Maisel, one of the film’s producers, told 24 Frames, adding that even though the dialogue retained Shakespeare’s flavor, it was uttered in “understandable iambic pentameter.” —

Romeo and Juliet markets to The Twilight Generation

Those last three words….wait, what?  

(via girlwithalessonplan)

vintageanchor:

President Obama chats in the Blue Room of the White House with author Toni Morrison, who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday.

queenofsunspear:

Folk Tales of Bengal | illustration by Warwick Goble | part III

“Everything looks permanent until its secret is known.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Circles”, Essays: First Series (via tanya77)

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” — Ray Bradbury (via yeahwriters)