15 quotes
Mirror, mirror, why does the real world so seldom cooperate with our aesthetic enthusiasms?
Frost & Fire (1989)
We revisit the mental landscape of childhood in times of trouble.
Frost & Fire (1989)
Of the three basic elements of any fiction—plot, character, and setting—it is the setting that requires extra attention in science fiction and fantasy.
Frost & Fire (1989)
But love can mean many things. It can be an instrument of aggression or a function of disease.
Frost & Fire (1989)
“And what is imagination?”
“A thing born of feeling and reason.”
Frost & Fire (1989)
I wonder what Hokusai would have done in contemporary times? He is silent on the matter.
Frost & Fire (1989)
Faith is beyond me. I will settle for hope.
Frost & Fire (1989)
Do you know what happens to artists who fall in love with their models? They come to a bad end. The same applies to scientists.
Frost & Fire (1989)
There is a part of me which likes to see things through allusions and touched with mystery. And the American part never trusts anything and is always looking for the real story behind the front one.
Frost & Fire (1989)
I was, at one level, still plagiarizing my earlier self. Nothing wrong with that, if some growth has occurred in the meantime.
Frost & Fire (1989)
If I had just done something decent and noble, why did I feel so stupid about it? Probably because it was out of character.
Frost & Fire (1989)
There is some thing vulnerable about Dorothy, times when she lapses into such a strong dependence that he feels oddly moved. Other times, it just irritates the hell out of him. Perhaps this is the closest he can come to love now, an occasional ambivalent response to being needed.
Frost & Fire (1989)
But I believe it was the Rilke who said that life is a game we must begin playing before we have learned the rules. Do we ever? Are there really rules?
Perhaps I read too many poets.
Frost & Fire (1989)
But I remember that Ernest Hemingway told Bernard Berenson that the secret of his greatest book was that there was no symbolism. The sea was the sea, the old man an old man, the boy a boy, the marlin a marlin, and the sharks the same as other sharks. People empower these things themselves, groping beneath the surface, always looking for more.
Frost & Fire (1989)
The important thing for me is the development and refinement of one’s perception of the world, the experimentation with viewpoints. This lies at the heart of storytelling, and all of the mechanical techniques one learns are merely tools. It is the writer’s approach to material that makes a story unique.
Frost & Fire (1989)