A Lie is something like the truth, but the truth is not like a Lie.

— Dan Raper

All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.

— Herman Melville

A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labor, and in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man's distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: 'This tower is most interesting.' But they also said (after pushing it over): 'What a muddle it is in!' And even the man's own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: 'He is such an odd fellow! Imagine using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why didn't he restores the old house? He had no sense of proportion.' But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Bentley mounted Silver wood, look down at his parents, and launched the powerful steed into the kingdom…a kingdom waiting for one young knight to discover the truth of a Stranger.

— Chuck Black

Carol says we speak with one voice. What she doesn't say is that voice belongs to HER. There's only one song to sing these days--Carol's song--and if you aren't in harmony, you can stick a stone in your mouth and shut the hell up.

— Joe Hill

Comparisons are like rigid fingers—eager to point at a subject but unwilling to grasp it.

— Richelle E. Goodrich

Every novel which is truly written contributes to the total of knowledge which is there at the disposal of the next writer who comes, but the next writer must pay, always, a certain nominal percentage in experience to be able to understand and assimilate what is available as his birthright and what he must, in turn, take his departure from. If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay. And this to remember; a serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

— Ernest Hemingway

He was no god, just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god.

— Roman Payne

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. Furthermore, I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

I could end this with a moral, as if this were a fable about animals, though no fables are really about animals.

— Margaret Atwood