E. L. McDowell quote: "As the majestic pearl is formed inside a clam through much irritation, so are you being formed through the irritations and conflicts of life."

Making decisions in anger is like spitting in the wind; it comes back and hits you in the face.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Struggles are really opportunities for your next level.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Boredom is the result of lacking focus.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Prosperity is a mindset.
E. L. MCDOWELL

The greatest challenge man will face is himself.
E. L. MCDOWELL

State of mind determines destination.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Take nothing or no one for granted, for what is predictable today will one day become unpredictable ...
E. L. MCDOWELL

Build a man's ego and you'll win his favor; crush a man's ego and you'll receive much grief from him...
E. L. MCDOWELL

Time is an advocate for truth.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Antagonists come with all life progression.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Closed doors present other opportunities!
E. L. MCDOWELL

Existence is the greatest opportunity one can have; so why settle for a mediocre state of being?
E. L. MCDOWELL

The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.
E. L. DOCTOROW

If we ever find out how the brain works, with all its complexity, then we will be able to build a ma...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The essential problems remain the same... The kids I write about are asking for the same things I wa...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

When I began writing in the mid-1960s, I thought it was not important for readers to know whether I ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Readers let me know that they like books that have more to them than meets the eye. Had they not let...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

After I won the Newbery Medal for 'From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,' ch...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I wr...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I was the first one in my family to go away to college. I came from a small town where there was no ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I get ideas for my books from people I know and what happens to them, from places I've been and ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Art comes from a visceral need and is usually generated by something I have seen; writing comes from...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I think most of us are outsiders. And I think that's good because it makes you question things.
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I was born in New York City. But my family moved when I was still an infant. Except for a year and h...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

When I was in college at Carnegie Mellon, I wanted to be a chemist. So I became one. I worked in a l...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Growing up in a small town gives you two things: a sense of place and a feeling of self-consciousnes...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn&#...
E. L. JAMES

I'm a bit of a control freak.
E. L. JAMES

Yes, I'm a 'Twi-hard.' I became obsessed. Absolutely obsessed. I didn't watch televi...
E. L. JAMES

I see myself as a story teller.
E. L. JAMES

I hate having my photograph taken.
E. L. JAMES

Everyone's clamoring for the fourth book in the 'Fifty Shades' trilogy, which makes me l...
E. L. JAMES

I've worked in television all my life, but really I've always wanted to work in the movies.
E. L. JAMES

I don't watch much British television at all. I mean, it's ironic because I used to work in ...
E. L. JAMES

If you've been married for 400 years, as I have, it's nice to experience first love again an...
E. L. JAMES

I've set the bar quite high in terms of storytelling.
E. L. JAMES

I think women love to read love stories.
E. L. JAMES

I'm looking forward to getting back to my house and my Ugg boots and not washing sometimes, and ...
E. L. JAMES

I'm not a great writer.
E. L. JAMES

I came up with a story and I wrote it.
E. L. JAMES

Once you're in charge of your job, your house, your children, getting the food on the table, doi...
E. L. JAMES

All a writer wants is to be read, and people are so flattering and lovely. I mean, there are witches...
E. L. JAMES

Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day.
E. L. JAMES

God forbid that women have fantasies.
E. L. JAMES

I really like clever men who challenge you.
E. L. JAMES

Women basically want the same thing - a good passionate story, a great fantasy - and for our partner...
E. L. JAMES

I value my anonymity. I'm happy to come in on the tube or the train and watch other people readi...
E. L. JAMES

I think women love a passionate love story.
E. L. JAMES

The important thing is not to be too comfortable when you're writing. Noise in the street? That&...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I started on computers with 'Billy Bathgate,' a little orange screen with black letters. I t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the p...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I have a number of vices, one of which is moderation.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think o...
E. L. DOCTOROW

A period of time is as much an organising principle for a work of fiction as a sense of place. You c...
E. L. DOCTOROW

When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the windo...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I discovered Einstein said the same thing about his celebrated theories of relativity that writers s...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.
E. L. DOCTOROW

We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I like commas. I detest semi-colons - I don't think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotat...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're do...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I got married very early, and in no time at all, we had three children. And it seemed to me I had an...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Here's how it goes: I'm up at the stroke of 10 or 10:30. I have breakfast and read the paper...
E. L. DOCTOROW

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.
E. L. DOCTOROW

The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we n...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.
E. L. DOCTOROW

It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the w...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.
E. L. KONIGSBURG

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the per...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Murders are exciting and lift people into a heart-beating awe as religion is supposed to do, after s...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The true greatness of a nation is not measured by the vastness of its territory, or by the multitude...
L. E. BLAZE

You can't remember sex. You can remember the fact of it, and recall the setting, and even the detail...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I think it's important to experience kindness so that you can experience it more in the future. ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Washington is designed not to solve problems. Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated an...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I don't think anything I've written has been done in under six or eight drafts. Usually it t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the per...
E. L. DOCTOROW

If Dr. [John A. T.] Robinson is right in saying that "God is teaching us that we must live as men wh...
E. L. MASCALL

Commemoration of Eglantine Jebb, Social Reformer, Founder of 'Save the Children', 1928 I do not w...
E. L. MASCALL

Enough has... been said to show that the impoverished secularized versions of Christianity which are...
E. L. MASCALL

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Even the most traditional theologian wil...
E. L. MASCALL

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: In the rare cases where faith appea...
E. L. MASCALL

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The critical scholar is not committe...
E. L. MASCALL

Beginning a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: If we are prepared to admit, even as ...
E. L. MASCALL

Feast of Mark the Evangelist There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about t...
E. L. MASCALL

Suffering isn't a moral endowment. People don't always do well under duress, and it seemed t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin. It should make you jump up and do something.
E. L. SIMPSON

If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

We dress them [children] in the presumptions of the world. They are the bright small face of hope. T...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Not really, ... There is no Carl. I made him up.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Its glory is all moonshine.
E. L. DOCTOROW

So what this is is a 'road novel.' Eventually entire civilization (in the South) had been uprooted a...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The wretched war had destroyed not only their country but all their presumptions of human self-regar...
E. L. DOCTOROW

For some reason that excited me.
E. L. DOCTOROW

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing,...
E. L. DOCTOROW

We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and ner...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The thing about this march is it was totally different than the rest of the war, as bloody and bruta...
E. L. DOCTOROW

He was a brilliant man, a complex man. The march justified him as a military man, but he had a great...
E. L. DOCTOROW

You could go for miles without seeing an end to the procession of troops and horses and wagons, ... ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

You can't do that to Carl.
E. L. DOCTOROW

It seemed to me so much more sensible to make something up than go through the tedious business of i...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. Mayb...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I don't see any point in making a big fuss about it. I just said, 'No, thank you.'
E. L. DOCTOROW

My father was the proprietor of a music shop on Forty-third Street, where many of the finest perform...
E. L. DOCTOROW

You were my marital bliss,” he said to me this morning. “You can be again!” You know what I an...
E. L. NEVE

The movie that changed my life,' he liked to say, by which he meant that it had changed his wardrobe...
E. L. NEVE

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Movies are too literal.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had los...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I'm not the sort of writer who can walk into a party and take a look around, see who's sleep...
E. L. DOCTOROW

A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

My theory about why Hemingway killed himself is that he heard his own voice; that he reached the poi...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Obama is a great man who's just beginning to understand the realities. And I'm not just sayi...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I get intrigued by a first lin and I write to find out why it means something to me. You make discov...
E. L. DOCTOROW

There are two books that impressed me when I was very young. One was 'The Adventures of Augie Ma...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Somewhere along the line the rhythms and tonalities of music elided in my brain with the sounds that...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.
E. L. DOCTOROW

In fiction, you know, there are no borders. You can go anywhere.
E. L. DOCTOROW

When you're working well, you don't do research. Whatever you need comes to you.
E. L. DOCTOROW

To have the regard of one's peers is immensely moving.
E. L. DOCTOROW

My sense of what a book should be has changed so radically. I like to think for the better.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I've outlasted many marriages at Random House.
E. L. DOCTOROW

People come out of the mid-west and go to the Ivy League. I kind of reversed the direction.
E. L. DOCTOROW

My books start almost before I realise it. Once in a while, some accident causes an idea to rise to ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

From my undergraduate days, I've always been interested in the major philosophical questions tha...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I'm from a country where acting is taken very seriously; it's a very serious profession.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I love doing every role I do!
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

You know, I've had an incredible career and I'm blessed.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

An actor cannot be a censor. I'm there to interpret.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

The most nurturing of directors can make you feel too comfortable, and you don't really push for...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I'd love to do radio plays. I think that one should be open to everything and shouldn't limi...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Different directors offer you different things, and it's not necessarily the most obvious things...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

There are no great scripts - just great films.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I think we're all a little afraid of the dark. If you lived in the country, as I did, there'...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I've always been one to do the work and just hone my craft.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I don't worry about whether I'm making a masterpiece, because I know that if you get just on...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

If you dunk your head in cold water, you can't stay under for more than five seconds. I mean, th...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherw...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

If you look a little punkish, then they're going to give you the parts. And if you play an iconi...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

My favorite actor who played villains - who could play anything, really - was Jimmy Cagney.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I'm not quite as buoyant as I was in my youth.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I like to razz the Trekkies a little bit. Who doesn't? It's trainspotting, isn't it? But...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Let's not get too precious about it: actors are not heart surgeons or brain surgeons. We are jus...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I just love a challenge, and always have, and will do anything to make it interesting. I'll try ...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

The villains that I play, I always think that they are grounded, wonderful people with enormous inte...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

The thing is, I've never been a handsome leading-man type, so let's not kid ourselves.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Once you commit to something, you've got to commit the whole way. Try and make the best of it.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

You can't hold back. You can't think of the subtleties of playing. You just have to get out ...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

You've always got to work with the best if you can, and of course, the best are the best because...
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

The definition of insanity in Texas is so insane that it's impossible to be insane in Texas.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Why don't the names of Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius offend people? The reason is that these other...
JOSH MCDOWELL

When I was a crusade director in British Columbia, all of our meetings were at 9:03. Somebody said &...
JOSH MCDOWELL

The test of man is how well he is able to feel about what he thinks. The test of a woman is how we...
MARY MCDOWELL

The test of man is how well he is able to feel about what he thinks. The test of a woman is how well...
MARY MCDOWELL

Forgiveness is the oil of relationships.
JOSH MCDOWELL

It is true I'd rather get a hole in one than win an Academy Award.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary....
JOSH MCDOWELL

Anyone with sincere religious beliefs cannot say that all religions are true. That is so illogical i...
JOSH MCDOWELL

After I set out to refute Christianity intellectually and couldn't, I came to the conclusion the...
JOSH MCDOWELL

No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary.
JOSH MCDOWELL

While the resurrection promises us a new and perfect life in the future, God loves us too much to le...
JOSH MCDOWELL

If Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be, and He did die on a cross at a point of time in history, t...
JOSH MCDOWELL

Few people seem to realize that the resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone to a worldview that pro...
JOSH MCDOWELL

Christ appeared alive on several occasions after the cataclysmic events of that first Easter.
JOSH MCDOWELL

The first thing that stuck in the minds of the disciples was not the empty tomb, but rather the empt...
JOSH MCDOWELL

Every university in America teaches 'Clockwork Orange.' I get fed up with it.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that...
JOSH MCDOWELL

For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as bein...
JOSH MCDOWELL

Paul the apostle recounted that Jesus appeared to more than 500 of His followers at one time, the ma...
JOSH MCDOWELL

The downfall of the church will not come from a lack of apologetic teaching; it will come from disin...
JOSH MCDOWELL

Here's the simplest answer: Within weeks, the disciples proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus Chr...
JOSH MCDOWELL

As a reward for their efforts, however, those early Christians were beaten, stoned to death, thrown ...
JOSH MCDOWELL

It's been a long day.
BOB MCDOWELL

We just wanted to see what we could contribute.
BOB MCDOWELL

The magnitude of the destruction was unbelievable. ... The scope of the conditions down there is jus...
BOB MCDOWELL

We had to take a big knife off one guy who we rescued. That's not anything that should be a surprise...
BOB MCDOWELL

Because the New Testament provides the primary historical source for information on the resurrection...
JOSH MCDOWELL

On that Sunday morning the first thing that impressed the people who approached the tomb was the unu...
JOSH MCDOWELL

I never do research unless it's extraordinary circumstances.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

It's definitely a very feminine season. There's just a huge variety out there, which is good because...
LAURA MCDOWELL

Richard Lester is a wonderful director, a great comedy director, of course.
MALCOLM MCDOWELL

We elect Democrats to the Congress to give us stuff and we elect Republicans to the White House so w...
CHARLIE MCDOWELL

In my home we are having to water every day, every night. I've put new plants in, some have died, so...
SUSAN MCDOWELL

Always have a little sweater with you.
LAURA MCDOWELL

As the majestic pearl is formed inside a clam through much irritation, so are you being formed through the irritations and conflicts of life.

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E. L. McDowell

As the majestic pearl is formed inside a clam through much irritation, so are you being formed through the irritations and conflicts of life.

E. L. McDowell

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