The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.
—Lester Bangs, 1971
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Quotes
I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1815Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
—G.C. Lichtenberg, c. 1780This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.
—Horace, c. 35 BCI never know quite when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, Dammit, Thurber, stop writing. She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, Is he sick? No, my wife says, he’s writing something.
—James Thurber, 1955