“Though we take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left; you cannot bereave him of his covetousness.”

-John Milton

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“Heresies are experiments in man’s unsatisfied search for truth.”

-H.G. Wells

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“I like to see life with its teeth out.”

-Janet Frame

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“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”

-Leo Tolstoy

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“And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves ‘It’s pretty, but is it Art?’”

-Rudyard Kipling

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“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

-John Steinbeck

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“Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.”

-Willa Cather

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“Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh.”

-Emile M. Cioran

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“An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.”

-Dylan Thomas

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“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”

-Douglas Adams

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“Give a man a fire and he’s warm for the day. But set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.”

-Terry Pratchett

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Self-help guru, Rhonda Byrne (of THE SECRET fame), is back with her heart-over-matter explanation of money woes in THE POWER.

Eliza Griswold earns the respect of The New York Times for her book, THE TENTH PARALLEL: DISPATCHES FROM THE FAULT LINE BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM.

The Star Tribune offers up a look at some late summer reading for the younger crowd.

Elliott J. Gorn puts the spotlight on one of the toughest spectator sports ever sold to the masses in THE MANLY ART: BARE-KNUCKLE PRIZE-FIGHTING IN AMERICA (UPDATED EDITION).

“Perhaps, more importantly, I think that most human beings realise only a fraction of the true potential of their minds, so the spiritual or mystical, the things which remain mysterious or unexplained have always drawn me to include them in any scheme for a novel.”

-Rose Tremain

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“Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour.”

-Bret Easton Ellis

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“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”

-Thomas Pynchon

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“Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.”

-E.B. White

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“Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy.”

-Peter De Vries

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“It’s a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.”

-Erle Stanley Gardner

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“A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.”

-Rebecca West

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“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.”

-Salman Rushdie

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