Prose Quotes

“Prose, in his experience, calls for many more words than poetry. There is no point in embarking on prose if one lacks confidence that one will be alive the next day to carry on with the task.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“... or else we contemplated the stars beyond the Moon, big as pieces of fruit, made of light, ripened on the curved branches of the sky, and everything exceeded my most luminous hopes ...”
― Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics

“I find myself still softly searching for my delinquent palaces.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Вообще, было бы неплохо, если бы проза так же перла, как трава или стишки. Не было бы всех этих споров, хорошо написал или плохо. Поперло – значит, хорошо. Не поперло – плохо.”
― Алексей Сальников, Опосредованно

“fiction must be different from reportage; painting from photography. And this difference should be reflected in the language of the work”
― Paul West

“For the truth remains that more can also be more, and that less is often inevitably less.”
― Chigozie Obioma, An Orchestra of Minorities

“Another time he woke me up in the middle of the night, lifted me off the pale blue sheets, led me outside to the stars and whispered: Look, Annie, look—there is no space for anything but dreaming. I listened, sleepily, wandered back to bed and
found myself wide awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to dream at all”
― Aimee Bender, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

“He was fine, older, and mostly nice to me. At least, I convinced myself he was nice. And most important, he wanted me.

He could have sex with any girl, but I was the one he was after. Even thinking about it now I get a little twisted up inside. So much of my decision to have sex had more to do with being chosen than it did with any actual sexual attraction.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, With the Fire on High

“From the nothing you gave me, I created from it.

This detachment is my way of life.”
― Kain O'Connor

“Love doesn't solely consist of books, films, and music and sharing the same past.
It consists of the present and the future.
It consists of the understanding that you want to grow and prosper together. That you don't solely look at each other but also look in the same direction.

We faced different directions, and it's no use to stick to that.
We would waste away our time. We only live once. We're obliged to fill our time how we honestly, sincerely, want it to be.

My darling, sometimes love isn't enough.
Ours we have lost in a time in which both of us kept moving without looking at each other.

You will always be a part of me, and I will remain a part of you. You were a good chapter, but never more than that.”
― Dahi Tamara Koch, Within the event horizon: poetry & prose

“In the course of the history of art and literature we repeatedly meet this stylistic differentiation according to subject-matter. For example, the dual manner of characterization employed by Shakespeare, according to which his servants and clowns speak in everyday prose but his heroes and lords in elaborately artistic verse, corresponds to this ‘Egyptian’, thematically determined alternation of style. For Shakespeare’s characters do not speak the different language of the various classes as they exist in reality, like the characters in a modern drama, for instance, who are all drawn naturalistically, whether they are of high or low degree, but the members of the ruling class are portrayed in a stylized manner and express themselves in a language non-existent in real life, whereas the representatives of the common people are described realistically and speak the idiom of the street, the inns and the workshop.”
― Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, Volume 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages

“In the dangerous kingdom of silence is our raft floating
hundreds of corpses are visible on the shoreline
burned in sunlight for long they are deformed
those whose life had vibrated till now
in happiness and grief electric current
whose life once while vibrating
from desire to desire
those lives had flown

In this dangerous kingdom of silence is our raft floating
burning sun overhead
on right is golden colour in the river
green carpet on sandy strip peeps
a naked man is seated on that strip all alone
seeing the raft he jumps in water
waves his hand while being washed away by tide
as is wants to say something
know one knows where he drowns in the heavy current
with half ton biscuit and a few saris
this small raft floats downstream

Dark hall-room
lavender fragrance touches nose
many men are running this way trampling corpses of relatives
jumps over for a fistful of food
fights for it with each other
dies
hundreds of incorporeal species in electric light
though goods for charity are not sufficient
terrible dearth of vehicles
and in order to reach the distressed area the administration
never finds a way out
in the absence of diggers between one to one & half thousand
were buried in one pit Sir
payment was Rupees two per day
news further says that four persons in Bhootnath's house
died when the house fell over them when they were sleeping
though his state of affairs was more or less same
happiness was not meagre in that tiny house
today beneath open sky small time truck driver Bhoothnath
stoops with his head between his knees
the Sub Divisional Officer said.
Twenty rupees more could not be given today from poverty alleviating fund
because the person who has the keys to the cupboard has not come.”
― Basudeb Dasgupta, বাসুদেব দাশগুপ্ত রচনা সমগ্র

“It’s the silence of the night, those few minutes just before the earth wakes and the night walkers have retired
It’s the moist dewy air; a mixture of a dull warmth entangled with a breezy coolness.
It’s the humidity that fills the air and ——
It’s the flashes of the movie projector as another memory emerges”
― Anonymous-9

“It is therefore necessary that writers everywhere should see it as their ultimate duty to preserve artfulness of language by couching audacious prose.”
― Chigozie Obiama

“But deadpan cool has long since thinned into a manner. Its reflexive irony is now more or less the house style of late capitalism.”
― Garth Risk Hallberg

“just a garland of good or enkindling poetry and prose fitted to urge folk into the open air … with perhaps a phrase or two for the feet to step to”
― E.V. Lucas

“it's really hitting me where I live. Prose poetry about what it feels like to be young and have the whole world caught inside your throat.”
― Lena Dunham

“Four other old folk emerged one by one to join their brother. All five siblings wore cheap polyester clothes, and standing in a group they looked very much alike. They differed only in their heights, like the fingers of a single hand.”
― Yu Hua, The Seventh Day

“Several times I ran into a crowd of [redacted], dozens of them. They were not like the other [redacted] that sometimes gathered together and sometimes separated--this crowd stayed consistently together as they walked, a little like the moon's reflection on water, which keeps floating in a discrete shape no matter how the waves tug.”
― Yu Hua, The Seventh Day

“I am not here to be a fighter
There is real work to be done
A softness to pass on.”
― Phoeby Montari, Raising My Mother and Other Kind Wars

“You hoped to snuggle my skin
through the abrupt winter breeze
but the frost cleared before pursuit of your wishes
Because you, unlike the weather
first need to commit”
― Phoeby Montari, Raising My Mother and Other Kind Wars

“If you want to love ​

Do so ​

To the ends of the earth​

With no shortcuts ​

Do so​

As the crow flies.​

Veronique Tadjo, As the crow flies​”
― Veronique Tadjo, As The Crow Flies

“It’s all a tolerable everyday charade, disturbing for the soul, acceptable for the eye. That’s why everyone is eager to only let you see them briefly, in passing, and not get to know them. Never know them.”
― Johan Miers, Visit: a short story

“في هزيع الليل الأخير لإحدى ليالي الحنين,احتجب نور الوجه الجميل في قلب ديمة سكوب فصار ذاك النور يسيل قطرات من غيث طاهر يستقبل نظراتي كلما حملقت في الأفق فيرويها .”
― سارة شوقي السقاف, إكليل تناثرت بتلاته

“أمي ..
أقحوانة و خزامى تزين ربى الوفاء ..
حين دقّت يد الجمال أجراس معابد العطاء ..”
― سارة شوقي السقاف

“لقد قطعت الأعوام عهودا على نفسها ..
أن تسير بنا إلى ما وراء حدود الفرح ..”
― سارة شوقي السقاف

“ساعتئذ..
تتسارع الوريقات بحبرها القاطن سويداء قلبها ..
كما تتسارع نبضات خافق الزمان ..
في أحشاء الأثير و الثرى ..
فتمتزج الروح السرمدية بالجسد الترابي الزائل ..”
― سارة شوقي السقاف, إكليل تناثرت بتلاته

“أجمل الأشياء أبسطها ..
و أنبل الأشخاص أوفاهم ..”
― سارة شوقي السقاف, إكليل تناثرت بتلاته

“When I think back to the first time we met, it feels like a dream," you said, only a few days later.
And thus you voiced what came true only a few months later.
It had been a dream.
[...]
"Even then, you have sealed our preterite," I said.
"Why do you say something like this," you asked me.
"Because we never had the chance to share the present.”
― Dahi Tamara Koch, Within the event horizon: poetry & prose

“wanting to change a person
who doesn't want to change himself
is like cosmetic surgery
on cancer patients”
― Dahi Tamara Koch, Within the event horizon: poetry & prose