“Copernicus stuck very closely to the facts, but in Kepler I invented freely, and it's a much better book because of that.”

John Banville, The Art of Fiction No. 200 (2009)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Copernicus stuck very closely to the facts, but in Kepler I invented freely, and it's a much better book because of tha…" by John Banville?
John Banville photo
John Banville 97
Irish writer 1945

Related quotes

Tim Curry photo

“It's much more a matter of playing the characters as they were written by the authors, because of the liberties that have been taken with pretty much all of them. They've all been distorted in one way or another, because the authors have hardly stuck to the facts.”

Tim Curry (1946) English actor, voice artist, comedian and singer

Tim Curry Plunges Ahead Into the Past, Part IV http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/24/theater/tim-curry-plunges-ahead-into-the-past-part-iv.html (January 24, 1990)

Giuseppe Verdi photo

“To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.”

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Italian composer

Copiare il vero può essere una buona cosa, ma inventare il vero è meglio, molto meglio.
Letter to Clara Maffei, October 20, 1876, cited from James P. Cassaro (ed.) Music, Libraries and the Academy (Middleton, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2007) p. 218; translation from the same source.

Zayn Malik photo

“(on "I Don't Get Down Like That" the Swedish group Play pop song) There comes a day when you realise turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realise there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

As himself talking about it being a yearbook, on 2017-05-10, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/nobodys-reached-out--zayn-maliks-best-quotes/zayn-malik-in-quotes3/

“Nicolaus Copernicus is the supreme example of a man who revolutionized science by looking at the old facts in a new way.”

Alistair Cameron Crombie (1915–1996) Australian zoologist, historian of science

Alistair Cameron Crombie, Medieval and Early Modern Science (1952) as quoted by John Freely in Before Galileo: The Birth of Early Modern Science in Medieval Europe http://books.google.com/books?id=MfhjAAAAQBAJ (2012).

Elihu Thomson photo

“Publish an invention freely, and it will almost surely die from lack of interest in its development”

Elihu Thomson (1853–1937) American inventor

Elihu Thomas lays down principles for inventors, by Thomas, E., Electrical World 75 (1920), p. 1505.
Context: Shall an invention be patented or donated to the public freely? I have known some well-meaning scientific men … to look askance at the patenting of inventions, as if it were a rather selfish and ungracious act, essentially unworthy. The answer is very simple. Publish an invention freely, and it will almost surely die from lack of interest in its development. It will not be developed and the world will not be benefited. Patent it, and if valuable, it will be taken up and developed into a business.

Jodi Picoult photo

“You may be real, but you're still stuck in a book.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Kate Williams (historian) photo
James Burke (science historian) photo

“I hope to show you that you or I could have done just what they did, or come close to it, because at no time did an invention come out of thin air into somebody's head,”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

Connections (1979), 1 - The Trigger Effect
Context: An invention acts rather like a trigger, because, once it's there, it changes the way things are, and that change stimulates the production of another invention, which in turn, causes change, and so on. Why those inventions happened, between 6,000 years ago and now, where they happened and when they happened, is a fascinating blend of accident, genius, craftsmanship, geography, religion, war, money, ambition... Above all, at some point, everybody is involved in the business of change, not just the so-called "great men." Given what they knew at the time, and a moderate amount of what's up here [pointing to head], I hope to show you that you or I could have done just what they did, or come close to it, because at no time did an invention come out of thin air into somebody's head, [snaps fingers] like that. You just had to put a number of bits and pieces, that were already there, together in the right way.

Haruki Murakami photo

Related topics