NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS » Wicked Quotes

“Now the worst thing you’ve done is often the first thing everyone knows about you.”

Nigel Beale — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:11:17 +0000

"It’s often said that we live in a permissive era, one with infinite second chances. But the truth is that for a great many people, the permanent memory bank of the Web increasingly means there are no second chances — no opportunities to escape a scarlet letter in your digital past. [...]

“Now the worst thing you’ve done is often the first thing everyone knows about you.” is a post from: NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

What’s wrong with opinion?

Nigel Beale — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:14:24 +0000

We’ve heard a fair amount about opinion and critical thought in the ’sphere of late. Here’s what John Milton had to say on the topic in the Areopagitica: "Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions: for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the [...]

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On Publishers who fall in love with Literature

Nigel Beale — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:04:52 +0000

Just acquired (from Peter Ellis, [listen to The Biblio File interview here]) a lovely addition to my collection of publisher’s memoirs/histories: a signed (to his daughter) copy of Author Hunting: Memories of an Old Literary Sportsman, by Grant Richards. It contains this quote from a letter written by Bernard Shaw to the Author in May, [...]

On Publishers who fall in love with Literature is a post from: NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

A thinking reed

Nigel Beale — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:50:26 +0000

NB "A thinking reed - It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world." Blaise Pascal, Pensees A thinking reed is a [...]

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More from de Bury on Books

Nigel Beale — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:43:52 +0000

Durham Cathedral by Albert Goodwin "In fine, since all men naturally desire to know, and since by means of books we can attain the knowledge of the ancients, which is to be desired beyond all riches, what man living according to nature would not feel the desire of books? And although we know that swine trample [...]

The Remedy of Books…

Nigel Beale — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 03:13:35 +0000

"In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of [...]

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Benjamin Franklin on the Body as Book

Nigel Beale — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:02:04 +0000

Here’s an epitaph that Ben Franklin wrote for himself: The Body of B. Franklin Printer Like the Cover of an Old Book, Its contents Torn Out And Stript of its Lettering & Guilding Lies here Food for Worms But the Work shall not be lost; Fit it well, as he believ’d Appear once more In a new and more elegant Edition Revised and corrected By the Author Benjamin Franklin [...]

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10 Wild Oscarisms

Nigel Beale — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:35:04 +0000

From the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection. Choice one-liners from Oscar Wilde: One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one’s hearers. The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value. It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information. Those [...]

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Thanks for Nothing

Nigel Beale — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:39:42 +0000

This could quite easily have been written by one of those Canadians who receives recognition at home once, and only once, they've received it from abroad: Samuel Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield: To The Right Honourable The Earl Of Chesterfield 7th February, 1755 My Lord, I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two [...]

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Hazlitt on Poetry

Nigel Beale — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:46:43 +0000

self portrait, 1802 ish " Many people suppose that poetry is something to be found only in books, contained in lines of ten syllables with like endings: but wherever there is a sense of beauty, or power, or harmony, as in the motion of a wave of the sea, in the growth of a flower that [...]

Hazlitt on Poetry is a post from: NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

Wicked Quotes

Nigel Beale — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:09:10 +0000

NB Flowers "Exuberance is beauty." William Blake. Wicked Quotes is a post from: NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

Wicked Quotes is a post from: NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

Helpful responses to those who have written an unpublishable novel

Nigel Beale — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:22:52 +0000

Sanguine words from QD Leavis to those who have written an unpublishable novel: “A bad novel is ultimately seen to fail not because of its method but owing to a fatal inferiority of the author’s make-up;” and, from Henry James: “No good novel ever proceeded from a superficial mind.” On a more helpful note: read the [...]

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Adagia: Wallace Stevens on Life and Poetry

Nigel Beale — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:31:58 +0000

A selection from Wallace Stevens's Adagia – his aphorisms or materia poetica – culled from Opus Posthumous: Happiness is an acquisition The highest pursuit is the pursuit of happiness on earth Merit in poets is as boring as merit in people Life is the reflection of literature Poetry must be irrational The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in [...]

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Ten Wicked Quotes about Writing and Reading, etc.

Nigel Beale — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:16:49 +0000

If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research. Wilson Mizner Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around. David Lodge When I want to read a novel I write one. Benjamin Disraeli I read everything except politics, philosophy, theology, economics, sociology, [...]

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George Eliot on Insects

Nigel Beale — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:37:11 +0000

"Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?" George Eliot George Eliot on Insects is a post from: NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE [...]

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