Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act II
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act II
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer
self-titled TV comedy special, 1997
Standup routines
“Carter Kane, 14, died tragically in Paris when he was eaten by his sister’s cat Muffin.”
Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid
Source: The Red Pyramid
“Its always nice to have a stud muffin at the table.”
Janet Evanovich Three to Get Deadly
Source: Three to Get Deadly
“In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.”
Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist
Source: The Second Sin (1973), p. 20.
Yann Martel (1963) Canadian author best known for the book Life of Pi
Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 50
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
The Expanding Universe (1963)
Context: Because of the very nature of the world as it is today our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity. There are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying, dissipating universe, that we can help our children avoid by providing them with “explosive material capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly.”
So how do we do it? We can’t just sit down at our typewriters an turn out explosive material. I took a course in college on Chaucer, one of the most explosive, imaginative, and far-reaching in influence of all writers. And I’ll never forget going to the final exam and being asked why Chaucer used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote in a white heat of fury, “I don’t think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these thing. That isn’t the way people write.”
I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn’t done deliberately.