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Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.

Thomas Pynchon

Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Early Ignorance Life Ourselves Structure Trouble Writing
Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Abuse Greedy Love Machine Power Technology
Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Dreams Essence Stupidity
Life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Accident Lesson Life Man Sanity Time
Our history is an aggregate of last moments.
THOMAS PYNCHON

History Moments Ourselves
She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as ‘pretty’ but he could never tell her all the rest, how many other living things, birds, nights smelling of grass and rain, sunlit moments of simple peace, also gather in what she is to him.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Beautiful Body Face Herself Light Live Moments Peace Simplicity Sun Thinking
Despair came over her, as it will when nobody around has any sexual relevance to you.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Despair Herself Sex Yourself
What sort of an age is this where a man becomes one’s enemy only when his back is turned?
THOMAS PYNCHON

Age Enemy Himself Man
I was dreaming about my grandfather. A very old man, at least as old as I am now, 91. I thought, when I was a boy, that he had been 91 all his life. Now I feel as if I have been 91 all my life.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Boy Dreams Himself Life Man Myself Old Thinking
Length is usually intensity. Not time.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Intense Time
It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Beginning Character Force Simplicity Try Wrong
A screaming comes across the sky.
THOMAS PYNCHON

One Liner Scream Sky
What are the stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing needles of our terror and longing?
THOMAS PYNCHON

Body God Healing Need Stars Terrorism
Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Choice Fame Myself Photography
But with a sigh he had released her hand, while she was so lost in the fantasy that she hadn’t felt it go away, as if he’d known the best moment to let go.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Fantasy Feeling Hands Let Go Lost Moments
Get too conceptual, too cute and remote, and your characters die on the page.
THOMAS PYNCHON

Character Concept Death Page Writing Yourself

Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.

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Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.

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Popular Authors

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