Steven Saylor Quotes

#1. I kept secrets from you. I let you believe a lie. I am an impious son. But I made my choice, as C(aesar) did, and once the Rubicon is crossed, there can be no turning back (Meto, Caesar's scribe, to his father Gordianus the Finder)

Steven Saylor

#2. What appalling tales we shall have to tell of the strange lands we visited; and of those lands, surely none was stranger or more barbaric than Rome!

Steven Saylor

#3. Even the crudest, most derivative novel is an expression of the author's hopes and fears and ideas about good and evil.

Steven Saylor

#4. Some men are one thing on the surface and another underneath. The true poet shows not just the exterior of his subject, but all the contradictions within, and lets the reader draw his own conclusions.

Steven Saylor

#5. I'm like the painter with his nose to the canvas, fussing over details. Gazing from a distance, the reader sees the big picture.

Steven Saylor

#6. Writing a first novel takes so much effort, with such little promise of result or reward, that it must necessarily be a labor of love bordering on madness.

Steven Saylor

#7. In politics, reality and appearance are of equal importance. You cannot attend to one and neglect the other. A man must determine both what he is, and what others believe him to be.

Steven Saylor

#8. Use the hook, you

Steven Saylor

#9. ...detachment from anger is one part of wisdom.

Steven Saylor

#10. There is nothing so unsure as the plans we make that rely on the sensible behavior of another human being.

Steven Saylor

#11. The strands (the gods) weave out of our mortal lives are like a pattern visible only from the heavens; we here on earth can only guess at their designs

Steven Saylor

#12. There was no arguing with a man's faith in the legends of his childhood.

Steven Saylor

#13. I can't say I had an ideal father, and I'm not a father myself.

Steven Saylor

#14. There is a fine sense of freedom that comes from wandering about a familiar city with no particular destination in mind, with no one to meet, no duties, no obligations. I had nothing to do and a thousand nameless, sun-drenched streets to do it in.

Steven Saylor

#15. All writing is an act of self-exploration. Even a grocery list says something about you; how much more does a novel say?

Steven Saylor