Christopher Barzak Quotes

“Transformation is something that obsesses me. What is the soul? Is there a difference between something like a soul and something like a self? Is our identity something we construct, or is it organic and natural? There are all kinds of theories.”

“I really do feel like I was born to write and tell stories.”

“Sometimes you've got to be able to listen to yourself and be okay with no one else understanding.”

“Buddha had said to make a light of yourself, and if Laurie had anything to say about it, one day he’d glow.”

“You’re like a candle in a dark room, throwing light backwards and forwards.”

“Real strength isn’t control. It’s knowing when to let go.”

“[EM] Forster was the only living writer whom he would have described as his master. In other people’s books he found examples of style which he wanted to imitate and learn from. In Forster he found a key to the whole art of writing. The Zen masters of archery—of whom, in those days, Christopher had never heard—start by teaching you the mental attitude with which you must pick up the bow. A Forster novel taught Christopher the mental attitude with which he must pick up the pen.”

“knowledge without application is like a book that is never read' Christopher Crawford, Hemel Hempstead.”

“O, thou art fairer than the evening air     Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;     Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter     When he appear'd to hapless Semele;     More lovely than the monarch of the sky     In wanton Arethusa's azur'd armsExcerpt From: Christopher Marlowe. “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus”

“I believe that everyone in the world is crazy except you and me. And even you're a little bit strange.”