Thoughts About Thinking

What I'm reading: Certain Prey by John Sandford

This came from a friend yesterday. I thought it was worth sharing. (Make sure you read the final entry--it's my favorite as well. Which one is yours?)

Quotes about thinking (and lack of), prompted by this Niels Bohr's quip: No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. ~Soren Kierkegaard

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting. ~Edmund Burke

Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar territory. ~G. Behn

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once a week. ~George Bernard Shaw

Keep Reading...

Sometimes I think and other times I am. ~Paul Valéry

Men who borrow their opinions can never repay their debts. ~George Savile, Marquess de Halifax

Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. ~John F. Kennedy

"I don't mind your thinking slowly, I mind your publishing faster than you can think." Physicist Wolfgang Pauli.

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress. ~Niels Bohr

And, the grand finale:
Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again? ~Winnie the Pooh

And yes, since tomorrow's Friday, look for another story from Homicide - Hussey

Short Stories, Part 2

What I'm reading: Queen of Babble gets Hitched, by Meg Cabot

What I'm writing: Chapter 8

I thought I'd share the second page of my handout from the short story workshop, with more quotes about the craft. If you missed the first page, it was Friday's post. Any favorites?

"I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances."
~John Steinbeck

“I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.”
~ William Faulkner

"Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short”
~ Henry David Thoreau

"I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I did not have time to make it shorter."
~Blaise Pascal (often attributed to Mark Twain)

"I try to leave out the parts that people skip."
~Elmore Leonard

"Short stories are designed to deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left out, and a good short story writer learns to include only the most essential information."
~Orson Scott Card

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
~Thomas Jefferson

"You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed."
~Larry Niven