Characters should be interchangeable as between one book and another. The entire corpus of existing literature should be regarded as a limbo from which discerning authors could draw their characters as required, creating only when they failed to find a suitable existing puppet. The modern novel should be largely a work of reference. Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before — usually said much better. A wealth of references to existing works would acquaint the reader instantaneously with the nature of each character, would obviate tiresome explanations and would effectively preclude mountebanks, upstarts, thimble-riggers and persons of inferior education from an understanding of contemporary literature. Flann OBrien
I am not an angel, ' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall...
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Unknown
Top 15 Things Money Can’t BuyTime. Happiness. Inner Peace. Integrity. Love. Character. Manners. Health. Respect. Morals. Trust. Patience. Class. Common sense. Dignity.
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Roy T. Bennett
There is an emotional promiscuity we’ve noticed among many good young men and women. The young man understands something of the journey of the heart. He wants to talk, to “share the journey.” The woman is grateful to be pursued, she opens up. They share...
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Stasi Eldredge
The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.
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Abigail Van Buren
Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.
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Joan Didion
More Quotes By Flann OBrien
A man who takes into consideration the feelings of others even when arranging the manner of his own death shows a nobility of character which compels the admiration of all classes.
You mean that because I have no name I cannot die and that you cannot be held answerable for death even if you kill me?"" That is about the size of it, " said the Sergeant.I felt so sad and so entirely disappointed that tears...
Past humanity is not only implicit in each new man born but is contained in him. Humanity is an ever-widening spiral and life is the beam that plays briefly on each succeeding ring. All humanity from its beginning to its end is already present but...
Well-known, alas, is the case of the poor German who was very fond of three and who made each aspect of his life a thing of triads. He went home one evening and drank three cups of tea with three lumps of sugar in each...
Put a thief among honest men and they will eventually relieve him of his watch.
