James Alexander Thom Quotes

#1. you come to understand that history might be, as Thomas Carlyle put it, "a distillation of rumor," or, as Napoleon said, "a set of lies generally agreed upon

James Alexander Thom

#2. If there is a rumor in the air about you, you'd better treat it as you would a wasp: either ignore it or kill it with the first blow. Anything else will just stir it up.

James Alexander Thom

#3. We pick bygone time up by the handfuls and, like clay, see if it feels right and then form it into stories about the past.

James Alexander Thom

#4. Once upon a time it was now.

James Alexander Thom

#5. He remembered another one of his mother's saying. It was back when she'd birthed Fanny, her tenth. Someone had siad it was about time she gave up mothering and rested. "Nay," she had said. "I've started something, and now I wouldn't stop if I could, and I couldn't stop if I would.

James Alexander Thom

#6. Too often we seek justice for just us.

James Alexander Thom

#7. For every time we regret keeping still, there are about ten times we regret speaking up.

James Alexander Thom

#8. Whether a character in your novel is full of choler, bile, phlegm, blood or plain old buffalo chips, the fire of life is in there, too, as long as that character lives.

James Alexander Thom

#9. Any marnin' th' good Lord lets'ee open your eyes, that's a day he's got somethin' f'r ye t' do.

James Alexander Thom

#10. Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late.

James Alexander Thom