Prose Quotes

“Loneliness isn't gray.
It is the color of the sky when it bleeds crimson rays in the horizon while there you are standing on the edge somewhere in this boulevard of broken promises, waiting, and waiting for a love that already left.”
― Verliza Gajeles

“The sky is busy tonight. I wonder who’s under it more than me?”
― Charlotte Eriksson, He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss

“I look for you, the way I was taught to look both ways when crossing the road. Uptight and wary, bracing myself for something I know could break me.”
― Lang Leav, Sea of Strangers

“The night was shining with stars. They were at the top of the Montee de Villedjuif, on the plateau from which Paris is a dark sea shimmering with millions of lights like phosphorescent waves; and waves they are, more thunderous, more passionate, more shifting, more furious and more greedy than those of the stormy ocean, waves which never experience the tranquility of a vast sea, but constantly pound together, ever foaming and engulfing everything!”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“The simmering crystal fragments had certainly found a grave within her.”
― Laraib Zakir, Chaos in Utter Silence

“The arts, as they develop, grow further apart. Once, song, poetry, and dance were all parts of a single dromenon. Each has become what it now is by separation from the others, and this has involved great losses and great gains. Within the single art of literature, the same process has taken place. Poetry has differentiated itself more and more from prose.”
― C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

“He made me depict from memory, in the greatest possible detail, objects I had certainly seen thousands of times without visualizing them properly: a street lamp, a postbox, the tulip design on the stained glass of our own front door. He tried to teach me to find the geometrical coordinations between the slender twigs of a leafless boulevard tree, a system of visual give-and-takes, requiring a precision of linear expression, which I failed to achieve in my youth, but applied gratefully, in my adult instar, not only to the drawing of butterfly genitalia during my seven years at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, when immersing myself in the bright wellhole of a microscope to record in India ink this or that new structure; but also, perhaps, to certain camera-lucida needs of literary composition.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

“Julguei que ia morrer. Queria morrer. E julguei que se fosse morrer ia morrer contigo. Rapazes como tu, jovens como eu…vi morrer tantos ao pé de mim durante o ano passado! Não tive medo nenhum. Não foi coragem o que ainda agora me fez ficar aqui. Pensei com os meus botões: "Temos esta cama, esta erva, devíamos ter-nos deitado juntados, abraçados, antes de morrer". Apeteceu-me tocar-te nesse osso do pescoço, a clavícula, que parece uma asa pequena e dura debaixo da pele. Apeteceu-me afagá-la com os dedos. Sempre gostei de corpos da cor dos rios e das pedras, da cor do olho castanho de uma susana, conheces essa flor? Já viste alguma? Estou tão cansada Kip, só me apetece dormir. Apetece-me dormir debaixo desta árvore, de cara encostada à tua clavícula, apetece-me fechar os olhos, sem pensar em mais ninguém, encontrar um nicho de árvore, trepar lá para dentro e dormir. Que espírito meticuloso! Saber que fio hás de cortar. Como é que soubeste? Foste dizendo não sei, não sei, mas sabias. Não foi? Não tremas, tens de ser uma cama sossegada para mim, deixa-me aninhar-me, abraçar-te como se fosses um avozinho, adiro a palavra "aninhar", tão lenta, não se pode apressá-la.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“Yes, yes, this is another adventure to be included in the chiaroscuro of that royal bandit's life, in the web of strange events that went to make up the variegated cloth of his existence. This fabulous event must have been inexorably linked to the rest: yes, Borgia came here some night, with a blazing torch in one hand and a sword in the other, while twenty yards away- perhaps at the foot of that rock- two of his henchmen, dark and threatening, searched the earth, the sky and the sea, while their master went forward as I shall do, dispersing the darkness with his terrible flaming arm.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“In the woods, where animals ruled with teeth and claws, such things mattered not a lick.”
― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland

“It could be said of Mr Schaeffer that in his life he'd done only one really bad thing: he'd killed a man. The circumstances of that deed are unimportant, expect to say that the man deserved to die and that for it Mr Schaeffer was sentenced to ninety-nnie years and a day. For a long while - for many years, in fact - he had not thought of how it was before he came to the farm. His memory of those times was like a house where no one lives and where the furniture has rotted away. But tonight it was as if lamps had been lighted through all the gloomy dead rooms. It had begun to happen when he saw Tico Feo coming through the dusk with his splendid guitar. Until that moment he had not been lonesome. Now, recognising his loneliness, he felt alive. He had not wanted to be alive. To be alive was to remember brown rivers where the fish run, and sunlight on a lady's hair.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“It could be said of Mr Schaeffer that in his life he'd done only one really bad thing: he'd killed a man. The circumstances of that deed are unimportant, expect to say that the man deserved to die and that for it Mr Schaeffer was sentenced to ninety-nine years and a day. For a long while - for many years, in fact - he had not thought of how it was before he came to the farm. His memory of those times was like a house where no one lives and where the furniture has rotted away. But tonight it was as if lamps had been lighted through all the gloomy dead rooms. It had begun to happen when he saw Tico Feo coming through the dusk with his splendid guitar. Until that moment he had not been lonesome. Now, recognising his loneliness, he felt alive. He had not wanted to be alive. To be alive was to remember brown rivers where the fish run, and sunlight on a lady's hair.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“If you stay long enough in a city, it reverberates inside you as both a celebration and a mourning.”
― Sneha Subramanian Kanta

“When he got to the steps, the voices drained suddenly to less than a whisper. It gave him pause. They had become an occasional mutter-like the interior sounds a woman makes when she believes she is alone and unobserved at her work: a sth when she misses the needle's eye; a soft moan when she sees another chip in her one good platter; the low, friendly argument with which she greets the hens. Nothing fierce or startling. Just that eternal, private conversation that takes place between a woman and her tasks.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“(P)assages of those books I once wrote in my head came back, like the curled edges of a dream which refuse to flatten out. They would always be flapping there, those curled edges... flapping from the cornices of those dingy shit-brown shanties, those slat-faced saloons, those foul rescue and shelter places where the bleary-eyed, codfish-faced bums hung about like lazy flies, and O God, how miserable they looked, how wasted, how blenched, how withered and hollowed out!”
― Henry Miller, Nexus

“The use of motifs is an effective device for memorability—the repetition of certain symbols throughout the experiences of the protagonist helps the idea register in the memory or subconscious of the reader.”
― Adewale Joel, Learn Creative Writing: A guide to writing perfect drafts

“The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.”
― George Orwell

“To paraphrase Ezra Pound, don't imagine that the art of prose is any simpler than the art of music; spend as much time developing your craft as a pianist spends practicing scales. 'Let the neophyte know assonance and alliteration, rhyme immediate and delayed, simple and polyphonic, as a musician would expect to know harmony and counterpoint, Pound argued in his 1913 essay, 'A Few Don'ts.”
― Constance Hale, Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose

“Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself - a Black woman warrior poet doing my work - come to ask you, are you doing yours?”
― Audre Lorde, The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

“I understand that I am both the architect and the tenant of my destruction. I can feel it so acutely like an ache in my chest, knowing ultimately that I am locked into a chain of events that I cannot stop, an outcome I cannot alter, feeling at once helpless yet hopelessly awed by the power of my part in this beautiful, brutal expression of the Universe.”
― Lang Leav, Sea of Strangers

“It's not enough just to say something even if we use the most elegant prose to say it. Rather, if a life is not changed in the saying, it is all better left unsaid.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“A school bus is many things.
A school bus is a substitute for a limousine. More class. A school bus is a classroom with a substitute teacher. A school bus is the students' version of a teachers' lounge. A school bus is the principal's desk. A school bus is the nurse's cot. A school bus is an office with all the phones ringing. A school bus is a command center. A school bus is a pillow fort that rolls. A school bus is a tank reshaped- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a science lab- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a safe zone. A school bus is a war zone. A school bus is a concert hall. A school bus is a food court. A school bus is a court of law, all judges, all jury. A school bus is a magic show full of disappearing acts. Saw someone in half. Pick a card, any card. Pass it on to the person next to you. He like you. She like you. K-i-s-s-i . . . s-s-i-p-p-i is only funny on a school bus. A school bus is a stage. A school bus is a stage play. A school bus is a spelling bee. A speaking bee. A get your hand out of my face bee. A your breath smell like sour turnips bee. A you don't even know what a turnip bee is. A maybe not, but I know what a turn up is and your breath smell all the way turnt up bee. A school bus is a bumblebee, buzzing around with a bunch of stingers on the inside of it. Windows for wings that flutter up and down like the windows inside Chinese restaurants and post offices in neighborhoods where school bus is a book of stamps. Passing mail through windows. Notes in the form of candy wrappers telling the street something sweet came by. Notes in the form of sneaky middle fingers. Notes in the form of fingers pointing at the world zooming by. A school bus is a paintbrush painting the world a blurry brushstroke. A school bus is also wet paint. Good for adding an extra coat, but it will dirty you if you lean against it, if you get too comfortable. A school bus is a reclining chair. In the kitchen. Nothing cool about it but makes perfect sense. A school bus is a dirty fridge. A school bus is cheese. A school bus is a ketchup packet with a tiny hole in it. Left on the seat. A plastic fork-knife-spoon. A paper tube around a straw. That straw will puncture the lid on things, make the world drink something with some fizz and fight. Something delightful and uncomfortable. Something that will stain. And cause gas. A school bus is a fast food joint with extra value and no food. Order taken. Take a number. Send a text to the person sitting next to you. There is so much trouble to get into. Have you ever thought about opening the back door? My mother not home till five thirty. I can't. I got dance practice at four. A school bus is a talent show. I got dance practice right now. On this bus. A school bus is a microphone. A beat machine. A recording booth. A school bus is a horn section. A rhythm section. An orchestra pit. A balcony to shot paper ball three-pointers from. A school bus is a basketball court. A football stadium. A soccer field. Sometimes a boxing ring. A school bus is a movie set. Actors, directors, producers, script. Scenes. Settings. Motivations. Action! Cut. Your fake tears look real. These are real tears. But I thought we were making a comedy. A school bus is a misunderstanding. A school bus is a masterpiece that everyone pretends to understand. A school bus is the mountain range behind Mona Lisa. The Sphinx's nose. An unknown wonder of the world. An unknown wonder to Canton Post, who heard bus riders talk about their journeys to and from school. But to Canton, a school bus is also a cannonball. A thing that almost destroyed him. Almost made him motherless.”
― Jason Reynolds, Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks

“I’m a timid person and I often find myself listening and watching people. From that I create prose and stories.”
― Lidia Longorio

“I’m convinced that in a perfect, civilized world there would be no other art but prose.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

“Querry and Doctor Colin sat on the steps of the hospital in the cool of the early day. Every pillar had its shadow and every shadow its crouching patient.”
― Graham Greene, A Burnt-Out Case

“THE CHILD GUSHED out from twixt Vern’s legs ragged and smelling of salt. Slight, he was, and feeble as a promise. He felt in her palms a great wilderness—such a tender thing as he could never be parsed fully by the likes of her.”
― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland

“I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose:
1. Sheer egoism [...] It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, a strong one. [...] But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class.
2. Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.
3. Historical impulse
4. Political purpose”
― George Orwell, Orwell on Truth

“Wake up a little pain; be a little less god damned tame, fire up the engine and pull out the stops; who the fuck cares until the bullet stops.”
― Sai Marie Johnson

“You wear poetry in your eyes.”
― Laraib Zakir, Chaos in Utter Silence

“Sometimes transformation begins with darkness.
Complete and total darkness.
Sometimes transformation feels like not being able to move— Not being able to breathe.
And it hurts.
When everything inside melts.
Moves.
Becomes different.
And sometimes, when we feel like this is the end—
that we have reached our capacity—
that there is no room to exist here—
in this moment. In this feeling. In this place—
We find strength to push just a little harder, to see the light.
To stretch our wings. To wake up. And realize that we have been changed.
And our souls are somehow more beautiful— in spite of it.
Because of it.
Keep pushing. You’re almost there.”
― Laura Monnett