Ralph Keyes Quotes

#1. Quotations are powerful tools. Michel de Montaigne, the father of all essayists, observed, 'I quote others only to better express myself.' Intrepid quotations detective Ralph Keyes helps us to discover the clear truth about exactly what was said and who exactly said it.

Richard Lederer

#2. Ralph Keyes calls quotation collectors "quotographers," the men and women who gather catchwords, watchwords, war words, winged words, maxims, mottos, sayings, and quips into books of a thousand pages. Through the centuries quotation collectors have saved quotations that would otherwise be lost.

Willis Regier

#3. The research in Ralph Keyes' The Quote Verifier is impressive, and each conclusion is like the solution to a real-life historical mystery. Who knew a reference book could be so entertaining?

Will Shortz

#4. If you seek just a little truth, as most, you should not ignore abstract forms, the basis from which all short-lived experiences we call reality springs.

Eugene J. Martin

#5. Perfect faith casts out all fears.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#6. I am strangely addicted to the writing of long letters, which, I am afraid, tire you; and for the future, I believe, I must be less communicative, in order to be less troublesome.

Mary Collyer

#7. The majority of everything has always been judged and manipulated by and on a minority's deeds

Deon Potgieter

#8. Willa Cather said that she write best when she stopped trying to write and began simply to remember.

Ralph Keyes

#9. Fear is felt by writers at every level. Anxiety accompanies the first word they put on paper and the last.

Ralph Keyes

#10. ... falling in love is a state of mental misery which has a restricting, impoverishing, and paralyzing effect upon the development of our consciousness.

Jose Ortega Y Gasset

#11. Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration.

Ralph Keyes

#12. But here's the rub of addiction. By its nature, people afflicted are unable to do what, from the outside, appears to be a simple solution - don't drink. Don't use drugs. In exchange for that one small sacrifice, you will be given a gift that other terminally ill people would give anything for: life.

David Sheff

#13. Say you are well, or all is well with you, and God shall hear your words and make them true.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

#14. Those who generate fog are Wizards of Oz hoping desperately that nobody pulls the curtain to reveal a trembling little writer behind it. This seldom happens. Readers who dare to point out that incomprehensible writing can't be comprehended risk being told that the problem is theirs.

Ralph Keyes

#15. Dikaios smacked Elam with his tail. His curiosity wouldn't kill a sick kitten, much less a cat.

Bryan Davis

#16. I prefer a man who is unskillful, who is an awkward writer, but who has something to say, who is dealing himself one time on every page.

Ralph Keyes

#17. Writing about something was not the moral equivalent of doing it,

Ralph Keyes

#18. Fear and courage are like lightning and thunder; they both sart out at the same time, but the fear travels faster and arrives sooner. If we just wait a moment, the requisite courage will be along shortly.

Ralph Keyes

#19. I think that simply nudging yourself into unfamiliar settings - physical or emotional - can produce surprising results on the writing front.

Ralph Keyes

#20. Robert? You wake me up and you charge me for it?

Dan Brown

#21. One of the most fundamental of human fears is that our existence will go unnoticed.

Ralph Keyes

#22. I'm tempted to say that the top three reasons for hopelessness are rejection, rejection, rejection. But let's cast our net wider. 1) Not being able to write as well as we hoped we could. 2) Not being able to write at all. 3) Rejection.

Ralph Keyes

#23. Authors always feel in danger of being abandoned by loved ones. This is a potent fear. Yet it's as inevitable as writer's cramp when we presume to write words for others to read.

Ralph Keyes

#24. Be as creative in your tactics as you are in your writing. Find what gets your engine going, no matter how peculiar it may seem to others.

Ralph Keyes

#25. There's no such thing as a good or bad culture, it's either a strong or weak culture. And a good culture for somebody else may not be a good culture for you.

Brian Chesky

#26. Writing can be wonderful therapy, and cheap at the price. At the very least, you eventually get bored by thinking about anxious topics and move on.

Ralph Keyes

#27. Anxiety is not only an inevitable part of the writing process but a necessary part. If you're not scared, you're not writing.

Ralph Keyes

#28. I shall develop the thesis that anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech act, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated.

Jurgen Habermas

#29. In modern times, nationalism is the most copious and durable source of mass enthusiasm, and that nationalist fervor must be tapped if the drastic changes projected and initiated by revolutionary enthusiasm are to be consummated.

Eric Hoffer