Jeffrey Tayler quotes

“My writing derived from the conviction I conceived during my college years: one should lead one's life as if one were the protagonist of an epic novel, with the outcome predetermined and chapter after chapter of edifying, traumatic, and exhilarating events to be suffered through. Since the end is known in advance, one must try to experience as much as possible in the brief time allotted. Writing is a way of ensuring that you pay enough attention along the way to understand what you see.”
-- Jeffrey Tayler

#Writing Quotes #Epic Quotes #College Quotes

“Not taking the Bible (or other texts based on 'revealed truths') literally leaves it up to the reader to cherry-pick elements for belief. There exists no guide for such cherry-picking, and zero religious sanction for it.”
-- Jeffrey Tayler

#Religious Quotes #Zero Quotes #Elements Quotes

“A purpose derived from a false premise - that a deity has ordained submission to his will - cannot merit respect. The pursuit of Enlightenment-era goals - solving our world's problems through rational discourse, rather than through religion and tradition - provides ample grounds for a purposive existence. It is not for nothing that the Enlightenment, when atheism truly began to take hold, was also known as the Age of Reason.”
-- Jeffrey Tayler

#Our World Quotes #Goal Quotes #Atheism Quotes

“Religion should be subject to commonsense appraisal and rational review, as openly discussible as, say, politics, art and the weather. The First Amendment, we should recall, forbids Congress both from establishing laws designating a state religion and from abridging freedom of speech. There is no reason why we should shy away from speaking freely about religion, no reason why it should be thought impolite to debate it, especially when, as so often happens, religious folk bring it up on their own and try to impose it on others.”
-- Jeffrey Tayler

#Religious Quotes #Art Quotes #Law Quotes

“Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.”

“The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.”

“The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.”

Source : A. J. Liebling (2005). “Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer”, p.27, Macmillan

“The only way to write is well and how you do it is your own damn business.”

“Nature is a book of many pages and each page tells a fascinating story to him who learns her language. Our fertile valleys and craggy mountains recite an epic poem of geologic conflicts. The starry sky reveal gigantic suns and space and time without end.”

“The constant happiness is curiosity.”

“My darlings, if I can't write dark, epic music, I can't live!”

“There were epochs in the history of humanity in which the writer was a sacred person. He wrote the sacred books, universal books, the codes, the epic, the oracles. Sentences inscribed on the walls of the crypts; examples in the portals of the temples. But in those times the writer was not an individual alone; he was the people.”

“Male egos require constant stroking. Every task is an achievement, every success epic. That is why women cook, but men are chefs: we make cheese on toast, they produce pain de fromage.”

“I learned three important things in college-to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes. What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.”

Source : Agnes De Mille (2015). “Dance to the Piper”, p.79, New York Review of Books