"Interludes" III, in From Darkness To Light : A Confession of Faith in the form of an Anthology (1956) edited by Victor Gollancz
Context: Writing, I crushed an insect with my nail
And thought nothing at all. A bit of wing
Caught my eye then, a gossamer so frail And exquisite, I saw in it a thing
That scorned the grossness of the thing I wrote.
It hung upon my finger like a sting.
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
As quoted in "Dolly Parton: Gee, She’s So Nice" https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/dolly-parton-gee-shes-really-nice (7 December 1980), by Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert <br class="br">1980s
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist
It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant.
There is another mode which enters into the natural history of every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in natural form, if its law and purpose be understood.
"Poets of the People" in Art, Literature and the Drama (1858).
Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker
On Alexie’s realization that the school on his reservation offered few educational opportunities in “Sherman Alexie Says He's Been 'Indian Du Jour' For A 'Very Long Day'” http://www.npr.org/2017/06/20/533653471/sherman-alexie-says-hes-been-indian-du-jour-for-a-very-long-day in NPR (2017 Jun 20)
William McGonagall (1825–1902) weaver, actor, poet
"The Autobiography of Sir William Topaz McGonagall".
Other works
“Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.”
Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer
William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist
Political Register (14 August 1819), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 18.
“Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments.”
Hyman George Rickover (1900–1986) United States admiral
The Rickover Effect (1992)
Context: Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments. Weaknesses overlooked in oral discussion become painfully obvious on the written page.
