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7635e0a
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That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death! Listen to them!
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literature
life
messages
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Connie Willis |
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e5a8d22
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Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?
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humour
independence
bellwether
fads
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Connie Willis |
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b76eb9f
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Cats, as you know, are quite impervious to threats.
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Connie Willis |
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8639bb7
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Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't oo, squeezums?"
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criticism
inspiration
reviewing
critique
reviews
on-writing
creative-process
writers
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Connie Willis |
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f30f1d6
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The reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over.
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Connie Willis |
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8b76dac
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One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.
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Connie Willis |
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d5c1f92
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You'd help if you could, wouldn't you, boy?" I said. "It's no wonder they call you man's best friend. Faithful and loyal and true, you share in our sorrows and rejoice with us in our triumphs, the truest friend we ever have known, a better friend than we deserve. You have thrown in your lot with us, through thick and thin, on battlefield and hearthrug, refusing to leave your master even when death and destruction lie all around. Ah, noble d..
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loyalty
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Connie Willis |
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6947439
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And kissed her for a hundred and sixty-nine years.
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Connie Willis |
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ceea91a
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People will buy anything at jumble sales,' I said. 'At the Evacuated Children Charity Fair a woman bought a tree branch that had fallen on the table.
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Connie Willis |
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ae2bac6
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I wanted to come, and if I hadn't, they would have been all alone, and nobody would have ever known how frightened and brave and irreplaceable they were.
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Connie Willis |
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f03ac3a
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No," I said finally. "Slowness in Answering," she said into the handheld. "When's the last time you slept?" "1940" I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering."
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Connie Willis |
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cf94334
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A Grand Design we couldn't see because we were part of it. A Grand Design we only got occasional, fleeting glimpses of. A Grand Design involving the entire course of history and all of time and space that, for some unfathomable reason, chose to work out its designs with cats and croquet mallets and penwipers, to say nothing of the dog. And a hideous piece of Victorian artwork. And us.
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Connie Willis |
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6e65622
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Management cares about only one thing. Paperwork. They will forgive almost anything else - cost overruns, gross incompetence, criminal indictments - as long as the paperwork's filled out properly. And in on time.
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management
paperwork
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Connie Willis |
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fa3e855
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Come here, cat. You wouldn't want to destroy the space-time continuum, would you? Meow. Meow.
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funny
time-travel
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Connie Willis |
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967f471
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TO ALL THE ambulance drivers firewatchers air-raid wardens nurses canteen workers airplane spotters rescue workers mathematicians vicars vergers shopgirls chorus girls librarians debutantes spinsters fishermen retired sailors servants evacuees Shakespearean actors and mystery novelists WHO WON THE WAR.
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Connie Willis |
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fd047dc
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I was on a walking tour of Oxford colleges once with a group of bored and unimpressable tourists. They yawned at Balliol's quad, T.E. Lawrence's and Churchill's portraits, and the blackboard Einstein wrote his E=mc2 on. Then the tour guide said, 'And this is the Bridge of Sighs, where Lord Peter proposed (in Latin) to Harriet,' and everyone suddenly came to life and began snapping pictures. Such is the power of books.
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Connie Willis |
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735ca00
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The entire range of human experience is present in a church choir, including, but not restricted to jealousy, revenge, horror, pride, incompetence (the tenors have never been on the right note in the entire history of church choirs, and the basses have never been on the right page), wrath, lust and existential despair.
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human-experience
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Connie Willis |
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fc3be32
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There are some things worth giving up anything for, even your freedom, and getting rid of your period is definitely one of them.
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Connie Willis |
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5a923de
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But if she'd come then, she would never have properly appreciated it. She'd have seen the happy crowds and the Union Jacks and the bonfires, but she'd have no idea of what it meant to see the lights on after years of navigating in the dark, what it meant to look up at an approaching plane without fear, to hear church bells after years of air-raid sirens. She'd have had no idea of the years of rationing and shabby clothes and fear which lay ..
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Connie Willis |
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08829ac
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The amazing thing is that chaotic systems don't always stay chaotic," Ben said, leaning on the gate. "Sometimes they spontaneously reorganize themselves into an orderly structure." "They suddenly become less chaotic?" I said, wishing that would happen at HiTek. "No, that's the thing. They become more and more chaotic until they reach some sort of chaotic critical mass. When that happens, they spontaneously reorganize themselves at a higher ..
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Connie Willis |
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4a158b4
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I'm not studying the heroes who lead navies--and armies--and win wars. I'm studying ordinary people who you wouldn't expect to be heroic, but who, when there's a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old ..
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Connie Willis |
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09883db
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I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie).
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plot
plotting
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Connie Willis |
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3202d65
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She had been wrong in thinking Christ had been called up against his will to fight in a war. He didn't look - in spite of the crown of thorns - like someone making a sacrifice. Or even like someone determined to "do his bit". He looked instead like Marjorie had looked telling Polly she'd joined the Nursing Service, like Mr Humphreys had looked filling buckets with water and sand to save Saint Paul's, like Miss Laburnum had looked that day s..
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sacrifice
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Connie Willis |
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e176a48
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It was about a girl who helps an ugly old woman who turns out to be a good fairy in disguise. Inner values versus shallow appearances.
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fairy
values
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Connie Willis |
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012e5e0
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I was never going to get any sleep. I was going to have conversation after conversation until I died of exhaustion. Here, in the restful, idyllic Victorian era.
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humor
victorian-era
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Connie Willis |
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a2ac270
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Translated 'Non omnia possumus omnus' as 'No possums allowed on the omnibus.
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Connie Willis |
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d1c5d04
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History was indeed controlled by blind forces, as well as character and courage and treachery and love. And accident and random chance. And stray bullets and telegrams and tips. And cats.
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Connie Willis |
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dbd87cb
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If King Harold had had swans on his side, England would still be Saxon.
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Connie Willis |
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5ae2d55
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Shakespeare put no children in his plays for a reason," Sir Godfrey muttered, glaring at Alf and Binnie. "You're forgetting the Little Prince," Polly reminded him. "Who he had the good sense to kill off in the second act," snapped Sir Godfrey."
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Connie Willis |
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2b305d3
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Don't they know science doesn't work like that? You can't just order scientific breakthroughs. They happen when you are looking at something you've been working on for years and suddenly see a connection you never noticed before, or when you're looking for something else altogether. Sometimes they even happen by accident. Don't they know you can't get a scientific breakthrough just because you want one?
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science
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Connie Willis |
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f22ff1f
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Finch picked up one of the ancient fax-mags and brought it over to me. "I don't need anything to read," I said. "I'll just sit here and eavesdrop along with you." "I thought you might sit on the mag," he said. "It's extremely difficult to get soot out of chintz."
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Connie WIllis |
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e4aa60f
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Nothing in all those "O swan" poems had ever mentioned that they hissed. Or resented being mistaken for felines. Or bit."
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Connie Willis |
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8d65d58
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Cyril had staked out his claim and refused to move. "Move over!" I said, freeing one hand from holding the cat to push. "Dogs are supposed to sleep at the foot of the bed." Cyril had never heard of this rule. He jammed his body up against my back and began to snore. I tugged at the rugs, trying to get enough to cover me, and turned on my side, the cat cradled in my arms. Princess Arjumand paid no attention to the regulations of animals on t..
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Connie Willis |
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c635933
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None of the things one frets about ever happen. Something one's never thought of does.
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Connie Willis |
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de97001
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That's what the movies do. They don't entertain us, they don't send the message: 'We care.' They give us lines to say, they assign us parts: John Wayne, Theda Bara, Shirley Temple, take your pick.
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movies
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Connie Willis |
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fc2b0a3
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I was flying out to Connecticut for the express purpose of breaking up with my boyfriend and I bought this set of three paperbacks to read on the plane and by the time I got to New Haven I was so worried about Frodo and Sam that I said to my boyfriend, "It's awful. They're trying to sneak into Mordor and the Ringwraiths are after them and I don't trust Gollum and ..." and I completely forgot to break up with him. And, as of yesterday, we've..
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Connie Willis |
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b7655a7
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Books are an amazing thing. Anyone who thinks of them as an escape from reality or as something you should get your nose out of and go outside and play, or as merely a distraction or an amusement or a waste of time is - dead wrong. Books are the most important the most powerful
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reading
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Connie Willis |
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b559581
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One of the nastier trends in library management in recent years is the notion that libraries should be "responsive to their patrons." This means having dozens of copies of and Danielle Steele, and a consequent shortage of shelf space, to cope with which librarians have taken to purging books that haven't been checked out lately."
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Connie Willis |
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c77f2ed
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I don't know who started the myth that sheep are fluffy and white. They were more the color of an old mop and just as matted with dirt.
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Connie Willis |
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3e479cb
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He looked resigned, as though he knew that wretched door--to where? Home? Heaven? Peace?--would never open, and at the same time he seemed resolved, ready to do his bit even though he couldn't possibly know what sacrifices that would require. Had he been kept here, too--in a place he didn't belong, serving in a war in which he hadn't enlisted, to rescue sparrows and soldiers and shopgirls and Shakespeare? To tip the balance?
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Connie Willis |
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2a09ba9
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What's Management up to?" I whispered to Bennett. "My guess is a new acronym," he whispered. "Departmental Unification Management Business." He wrote down the ltters on his legal pad. "D.U.M.B."
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mnagement
dumb
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Connie Willis |
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6450078
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That's the problem with models--they only include the details people think are relevant,
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Connie Willis |
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7b9e150
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They make you settle for second best." That's what I like about the movies. There's always some minor character standing round to tell you the moral, just in case you're too dumb to figure it out for yourself. "You never get what you want."
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second-best
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Connie Willis |
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0b5a340
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There are a hundred ways a man can bleed to death. And he can be pulled from the rubble of bitterness, of despair, as well as the wreckage of the Phoenix. And which rescue is the more real? Nothing you could have done for me... was more important than the restoration of my hope.
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Connie Willis |