Cornelia, Slightly the Worse for Wear after a Night in Marin County

By Cornelia



I have long been a collector of quotes. I have this yellow blank book I started writing what I consider the juicy memorable ones down in, starting around 1985.

These range from a character of Peter De Vries’s saying, in his Consenting Adults, or The Duchess Will be Furious:

“For the day of vengeance is at hand. ‘Ye are no longer my people, ye fancy schmancy, sayeth the Lord. ‘Wastrels and spoiled, ye eat only the tender tips of the asparagus and throw the rest away, yea, that which is still edible. Lo the lean years will come and ye shall learn your lesson. Yea the entire stalk will ye eat, and glad to get it.”

To an exchange overheard by my sister Freya when she was living in Maui with a bunch of pro sailboarders, during the summer of 1986:

Hawaiian dude: This is a Hawaiian Luau.

Freya’s friend Ralph: Yes, we have something similar in Connecticut. We call them “barbecues.”

Okay, so I stayed up WAY too late last night, hanging out with my buddies Muffy and Daphne and Katie, after we all went to hear the inimitably lanky and charming and achingly hip Lee Child speak at the sublime and lapidary Book Passage in Corte Madera.

I went to boarding school with these guys (not Lee, more's the pity). As my mother once observed, "I sent my daughters to boarding school. They learned to swear and smoke there." Also drink. Last night we proved her right. Again.

The school's motto is "Do it with thy might." It should probably have been "Party like tanker captains. Or Kennedys. Or both."

As a result, my brain is complete oatmeal this morning, so I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes on writing (well, okay, and art generally) with you all, herewith:

“The art of our necessities is strange that it can make vile things precious.”

--King Lear (from Diane Arbus’s noteboard)

“Q. How did you arrive upon the image of a toad for work or labour?

A. Sheer genius.”

--Philip Larkin, “The Paris Review Interview”

“The biggest lie is the fraud of purview. The illusion of omniscience. This is the basis of the first person in literature, the narrator as the only sensible person in a world of fools. We see it in Voltaire, we see it in William Burroughs. It’s a good way to make your readers think you are a genius.”

--Rene Ricard, “Pledge of Allegiance,” Art Forum

“We have art in order that we may not perish from the truth.”

--Nietsche

“Let’s not go too deeply into these things. It’s only a movie.”

--Alfred Hitchcock

“Language is a virus from outer space.”

--William Burroughs

“The difference between a fairy tale and a war story is that a fairy tale starts with ‘Once upon a time’ and a war story starts with ‘This is no shit.’”

--Jim Morris

“If you can describe clearly without a diagram the proper way of making this or that knot, then you are a master of the English tongue.”

--Hillaire Belloc

“Hardly anyone believes himself to be against thought and culture. Men do not rise in the morning, grin at themselves in their mirrors, and say: ‘Ah, today I shall torment an intellectual and strangle an idea!’”

--Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

“Every time I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my pistol.”

--Herman Goering

“No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you intended. Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.”

--Alice Walker, 1972 Graduation Convocation, Sarah Lawrence College

“The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.”

--May Sarton

“You are mistaken, cry’d the Inn-keeper, for admit the histories are silent in this Matter, the Authors evidently thinking it needless to mention Things so evidently necessary as Money and clean Shirts, yet there is no reason to think knights went without either…”

--Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote

“The essential function of art is moral. Not aesthetic, not pastime and recreation. But moral. The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not a didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind.”

--D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature

Last but not least, my personal fave:

“And there is absolutely no evidence that I could write a good book. It might very well be the most awful weasel vomit.”

--Brenda Ueland, Me

What are you guys’ favorite quotes? I would love to add to my collection!

ALSO! I have some signings today and over the weekend that I would love it if you could come to:

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31ST
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
STACEY’S BOOKSTORE
Signing 12:30pm
581 Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94105

FRIDAY, JUNE 2ND
SEATTLE, WA

SEATTLE MYSTERY BOOKSTORE
Signing 12:00pm
117 Cherry St.
Seattle, WA 98104
* with Lee Child

SATURDAY, JUNE 3RD
LOS ANGELES, CA

THE MYSTERY BOOKSTORE
Signing 5:00pm
1036 C Broxton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024

SUNDAY, JUNE 4TH
ORANGE, CA

BOOK CARNIVAL
Signing 1:00pm
348 S. Tustin Ave.
Orange, CA 92866


MONDAY, JUNE 5TH
THOUSAND OAKS, CA

MYSTERIES TO DIE FOR
Signing 1:00pm
2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91362
* with Lee Child


Hope everyone has a FANTASTIC WEEK!!!