George Eliot on Control, or It’s Lack, in Writing

“Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.”

~ George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book III

Source: WikiQuote

Benjamin Disraeli on Opening Quotations

“When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.”

~ Benjamin Disraeli

Source: The Quotations Page: Benjamin Disraeli

John Dryden on Language

“I trade both with the living and the dead for the enrichment of our native language.”

~ John Dryden, Dedication to translation of The Æneid

Source: WikiQuote

Douglas Adams on What Things Really Are

“If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.”

~ Douglas Adams

Source: WikiQuote

J. Michael Straczynski on Immortality by Proxy

“Like everyone else, I am going to die. But the words–the words live on for as long as there are readers to see them, audiences to hear them. It is immortality by proxy. It is not really a bad deal, all things considered.”

~ J. Michael Straczynski

Source: Quotable Quotes

Theophile Gautier on Creating Beauty from That Which Resists the Creative Process

“Yes, the work comes out more beautiful from a material that resists the process, verse, marble, onyx, or enamel.”

~ Theophile Gautier

Source: BrainyQuote

Friedrich Nietzsche on Metaphors and Reality

“We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things — metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873), Part 1

Source: WikiQuote, “Friedrich Nietzsche”

Theophile Gautier on Art and Beauty

“Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.”

~ Theophile Gautier

Source: BrainyQuote

Henry Ward Beecher about Words

“Words are pegs to hang ideas on.”

~ Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit. The Human Mind (1887)

Source: WikiQuotes

Oscar Wilde on Finding Meanings in Books

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: GoodReads