Quotes – Page 3 – Interesting Literature

Who Said, ‘Everyone has a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay’?

Who first said this famous quip about everyone having a book or novel in them?

‘Everyone has a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.’ Or, as some sources have it, ‘Everyone has a novel in them.’ Still others: ‘Every journalist has a novel in him.’ Most of us have heard the line, or some variation on it, and understand what it’s saying: it’s challenging the age-old belief that everyone has a story to tell, by suggesting that a) not all stories are actually worth telling, and b) not everyone can tell their story very well. So much for the main thrust of the quotation; but its authorship is not such an easy thing to determine. Who actually came up with it?

The Best Definitions from Ambrose Bierce’s ‘Devil’s Dictionary’

The funniest and wittiest quotes from Ambrose Bierce’s comic masterpiece, The Devil’s Dictionary

We’ve read the whole of Ambrose Bierce’s wonderful The Devil’s Dictionary and, below, have distilled the book into 25 of the very best entries in this classic lexicon. The only stipulation we set ourselves was that the quotes we selected had to be short and pithy – preferably no longer than one sentence – to ensure maximum quotability. We hope you enjoy our selection.

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.

Barometer, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

Clairvoyant, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron – namely, that he is a blockhead.

10 Great Quotes from Writers about Fools

Funny and witty sourced quotes from writers – about fools, folly, and foolishness

Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever. – Charles Lamb, cited in Wordsworth Book of Humorous Quotations

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. – Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

My nose itch’d, and I knew I should drink wine, or kiss a fool. – Jonathan Swift, ‘Polite Conversation’

In university they don’t tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools. – Doris Lessing, Martha Quest

10 Great Quotes from John Steinbeck

10 witty and inspiring quotes from the author of Of Mice and Men

An interviewer once asked John Steinbeck, ‘How do you go about writing?’ Steinbeck reportedly replied, ‘With a pencil.’ Elsewhere, thankfully, he was more forthcoming about the nature of writing, whether his own, or literature in general. In this post we’ve gathered up ten of the best John Steinbeck quotes, on topics ranging from the nature of ideas to the odd ‘fan’ mail Steinbeck received.

The Meaning and Origin of ‘The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’. The phrase has the ring of proverb about it, and most proverbs don’t have an author: they’re anonymous nuggets of wisdom handed down from generation to generation, part of an oral rather than written tradition. But we can actually trace ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ to a clear source – at least, in a sense.