“I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells - a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there: and often when there is nothing in the world at the bottom besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and a-half under-ground, it shall pass, however, for wondrous deep upon no wiser reason than because it is wondrous dark”

— Jonathan Swift , book A Tale of a Tub

A Tale of a Tub (1704)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Jonathan Swift 141

Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet 1667–1745

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“Being a woman writer, I would be deceiving myself if I said I write completely through the eye of a man. There’s nothing bad in it, but that does not make me a feminist writer. I hate that name. The tag is from the Western world – like we are called the Third World.”

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) author

Speaking on her writing not as a feminist [as quoted in "Zikoko" https://www.zikoko.com/life/oldies/9-thought-provoking-quotes-from-the-literary-icon-buchi-emecheta/).

“I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well.”

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“I know only too well from a personal experience that is number one on my list of things to be forgotten.”

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“A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a great book. . . I think a writer has to extend very widely, as well as plunge very deep, to be a great novelist. ”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

“That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.”

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“It was beautiful Eric, who desired me, who was hungry for me, in a world that often let me know it could do very well without me.”

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“The smaller the world, the better I feel. When the reed is around me, evil has disappeared from the world. I really shall paint the reed next year, I've seriously decided. A small area of reeds with some water under. And then it will appear [on the canvas] exactly in the way it will make one quiet. I will paint it outdoors because I don't have any imagination - by the way, I would find myself very cheeky if I did. I have nothing to add, I have nothing in me and I believe I must be well aware of that because that is my limitation, as a consequence of my temporality.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Hoe kleiner de wereld, hoe beter ik me voel. Het riet om mij heen, dan is het kwade de wereld uit. Volgend jaar zal ik dat riet schilderen, ik heb het mij heilig voorgenomen. Een stukje riet met een stukje water eronder. En dan komt het er precies zo op dat je er stil van wordt. Ik schilder het buiten, want fantasie heb ik niet en dat zou ik trouwens een grote brutaliteit van mijzelf vinden. Ik heb er niets aan toe te voegen, ik heb niets in mij en ik geloof dat ik dat mijzelf goed bewust moet zijn, want als gevolg van mijn tijdelijkheid is dat mijn beperktheid.
Source: Jopie Huisman', 1981, p. 118

“That's what I like about the World Series. It gives me a chance to talk with lots of writers, a chance for them to understand me better than in the past. When Roberto Clemente is mentioned, he is always mentioned with injuries. They say I'm moody, selfish, temperamental. That's not the real me. I was born with a serious face. If you know my life, if you know me well by taking the time to learn to know me, then you'll understand me. Most places I go, people say "smile." I don't like that. I don't believe in being a hypocrite. If the occasion is for smiling, I will be smiling. I'm a very happy person.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Says He is Very Happy" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=42oeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QckEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1983%2C4221206 by the Associated Press, in The Daytona Beach Morning Journal (October 16, 1971), p. 1-C
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

“In the late Middle Ages there were, no doubt, many persons in monasteries and convents who had no business there and should have been out in the world earning an honest living, but today it may very well be that there are many persons trying to earn a living in the world and driven by failure into mental homes whose true home would be the cloister.”

W. H. Auden book Forewords and Afterwords

"The Protestant Mystics", p. 73
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

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Jonathan Swift 141

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