FastSaying

What about confusing clutter? Information overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and "simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading. Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.


Edward R. Tufte

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have to be seen to be believed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Grief is the price we pay for love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II These wretched babies don't come until they are ready.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I wish I could see you some day,
Just for a moment, just see you,

I wish I could h...
RATISH EDWARDS We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT With the right help, children have a good chance of overcoming their issues while they are still you...
KATE MIDDLETON As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
KING SOLOMON I don't mind a big fascinator. I think there is more scope for artwork in a fascinator rather th...
ZARA PHILLIPS I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think I'll still be riding at 40. There are a couple of people who are still riding ...
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS I'd love to have kids, but not at the moment.
ZARA PHILLIPS You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS Virtually everything that gets printed about me is wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter wha...
ZARA PHILLIPS It's stupid to say that I don't like being in the public eye, but I don't like doing stu...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm an affectionate person.
ZARA PHILLIPS People still text me to say that there is something about me in the paper, and what really annoys me...
ZARA PHILLIPS Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an au...
ZARA PHILLIPS Taking part in an Olympics on home ground is something you dream about.
ZARA PHILLIPS My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think about the media.
ZARA PHILLIPS I love the sport and being competitive.
ZARA PHILLIPS The horses are all characters, all personalities. Some you get along with, some you don't, some ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I hate having my picture taken.
ZARA PHILLIPS Unfortunately in sport it's either good or bad. You've got to take the highs and the lows.
ZARA PHILLIPS My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, real...
ZARA PHILLIPS The senior members of the royal family work very hard and I don't think people quite realise tha...
ZARA PHILLIPS In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early. ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS I think Facebook's dangerous. So many people I know get into trouble with Facebook... I'd ra...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm not a princess anyway so I find that quite weird to be labelled as one.
ZARA PHILLIPS Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.
KING JAMES I My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them...
MARIE ANTOINETTE I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascina...
WALLIS SIMPSON PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea...
WALLIS SIMPSON I am so anxious for you not to abdicate and I think the fact that you do is going to put me in the w...
WALLIS SIMPSON I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.
WALLIS SIMPSON I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.
WALLIS SIMPSON A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe...
WALLIS SIMPSON Never explain, never complain.
WALLIS SIMPSON You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.
WALLIS SIMPSON I have always had the courage for the new things that life sometimes offers.
WALLIS SIMPSON For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
WALLIS SIMPSON Forgive me for not writing but this man is exhausting.
WALLIS SIMPSON You can never be too rich or too thin.
WALLIS SIMPSON A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
KING SOLOMON It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most...
FREDERICK THE GREAT Addiction is a hugely complex and destructive disease, and its impact can be simply devastating. All...
KATE MIDDLETON There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
MARIE ANTOINETTE I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.
MARIE ANTOINETTE I think change needs to be egoless. It's not about my leaving my fingerprints or a legacy. It...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.
QUEEN VICTORIA I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.
KING JAMES I I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
CHARLES V I feel very, very lucky that George has got a little sister.
KATE MIDDLETON It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country;...
MARIE ANTOINETTE I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
AUGUSTUS A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
FREDERICK THE GREAT Nothing is more useless in developing a nation's economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN It is necessary to try to pass one's self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
QUEEN CHRISTINA There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.
PRINCE CHARLES We shouldn't judge people through the prism of our own stereotypes.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
PRINCESS DIANA What must it be like for a little boy to read that daddy never loved mummy?
PRINCESS DIANA The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult period...
PRINCESS DIANA People think that at the end of the day a man is the only answer. Actually, a fulfilling job is bett...
PRINCESS DIANA

More Edward R. Tufte

Design cannot rescue failed content.
EDWARD R. TUFTE Above all else show the data.
EDWARD R. TUFTE I do believe that there are some universal cognitive tasks that are deep and profound - indeed, so d...
EDWARD TUFTE If you like overheads, you'll love PowerPoint.
EDWARD TUFTE That is to say, nature's laws are causal; they reveal themselves by comparison and difference, a...
EDWARD TUFTE The point of the essay is to change things.
EDWARD TUFTE The speculative part of my work is that these particular cognitive tasks - ways of thinking analytic...
EDWARD TUFTE The goal is to provide analytical tools that will last students a lifetime.
EDWARD TUFTE Beautiful Evidence is about the theory and practice of analytical design.
EDWARD TUFTE The minimum we should hope for with any display technology is that it should do no harm.
EDWARD TUFTE What gets left out is the narrative between the bullets, which would tell us who's going to do w...
EDWARD TUFTE I think it is important for software to avoiding imposing a cognitive style on workers and their wor...
EDWARD TUFTE It is straightforward for me to be ethical, responsible, and kind-hearted because I have the resourc...
EDWARD TUFTE My idea here is that, inasmuch as certain cognitive tasks and principles are tied to nature's la...
EDWARD TUFTE It's not that PowerPoint brought the Columbia down, but the method of presentation broke up the argu...
EDWARD TUFTE The point is that analytical designs are not to be decided on their convenience to the user or neces...
EDWARD TUFTE All I have to do is educate myself enough in the field to be able to do what I want. It's very pract...
EDWARD TUFTE The leading edge in evidence presentation is in science; the leading edge in beauty is in high art.
EDWARD TUFTE The know-your-audience philosophy can be a big step down the road to pandering to the audience.
EDWARD TUFTE If you like overheads, you'll love PowerPoint.
EDWARD TUFTE The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of se...
EDWARD TUFTE 95% of the published literature is junk.Only 5% you have to read. You have to identify it. You have ...
EDWARD TUFTE Second, simply use PowerPoint as a slide projector rather than an information tool.
EDWARD TUFTE The central claim of the book is that effective analytic designs entail turning thinking principles ...
EDWARD TUFTE Public discussions are part of what it takes to make changes in the trillions of graphics published ...
EDWARD TUFTE A curious consequence is that I have become a minor celebrity.
EDWARD TUFTE The idea of trying to create things that last - forever knowledge - has guided my work for a long ti...
EDWARD TUFTE What gets left out is the narrative between the bullets, which would tell us who's going to do what ...
EDWARD TUFTE My father worked for governments all his life as an engineer and public works director.
EDWARD TUFTE The key argument is that cognitive tasks should be turned into design principles.
EDWARD TUFTE There are many true statements about complex topics that are too long to fit on a PowerPoint slide.
EDWARD TUFTE What this means is that we shouldn't abbreviate the truth but rather get a new method of presentatio...
EDWARD TUFTE I hope that I am generous and tolerant, but certainly on the intellectual side I think that there ar...
EDWARD TUFTE Rather, the point is to recognize the tightness between seeing and thinking on an intellectual level...
EDWARD TUFTE At its heart, my work is about how to think clearly and deeply, using evidence, and all that has to ...
EDWARD TUFTE I was writing a chapter of Beautiful Evidence on the subject of the sculptural pedestal, which led t...
EDWARD TUFTE We shouldn’t abbreviate the truth but rather get a new method of presentation.
EDWARD TUFTE What this means is that we shouldn't abbreviate the truth but rather get a new method of present...
EDWARD TUFTE I am certainly not an intellectual relativist, nor a moral relativist.
EDWARD TUFTE Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it...
EDWARD R. MURROW Good night, and good luck.
EDWARD R. MURROW He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
EDWARD R. MURROW To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we m...
EDWARD R. MURROW Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation.
EDWARD R. MURROW Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize the...
EDWARD R MURROW Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize th...
EDWARD R MURROW A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.
EDWARD R. MURROW Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them...
EDWARD R. MURROW A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I...
EDWARD R. MURROW Principle, particularly moral principal, can never be a weathervane, spinning around this way and th...
EDWARD R. LYMAN If we confuse dissent with disloyalty
EDWARD R. MURROW I have always been on the side of the heretics, against those who burned them, because the heretics ...
EDWARD R. MURROW We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason i...
EDWARD R. MURROW We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of Ame...
EDWARD R. MURROW The obscure we see eventually, the completely apparent takes longer.
EDWARD R. MURROW The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human...
EDWARD R. MURROW A satellite has no conscience.
EDWARD R. MURROW We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
EDWARD R. MURROW No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.
EDWARD R. MURROW After last night's debate, the reputation of Messieurs Lincoln and Douglas is secure.
EDWARD R. MURROW If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable...
EDWARD R. MURROW A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can s...
EDWARD R. MURROW Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
EDWARD R. MURROW We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect...
EDWARD R. MURROW Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.
EDWARD R. MURROW Senator McCarthy's reckless and unfounded attempt to impugn my loyalty is just one more example ...
EDWARD R. MURROW To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be tr...
EDWARD R. MURROW No man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.
EDWARD R. MURROW When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear t...
EDWARD R. MURROW We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig de...
EDWARD R. MURROW The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distr...
EDWARD R. MURROW The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
EDWARD R. MURROW Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit.
EDWARD R. MURROW Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it rea...
EDWARD R. MURROW Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.
EDWARD R. MURROW A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
EDWARD R. MURROW The politician in my country seeks votes, affection and respect, in that order. With few notable exc...
EDWARD R. MURROW Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.
EDWARD R. MURROW Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear -- wi...
EDWARD R. MURROW This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to...
EDWARD R. MURROW [The] See It Now ... See It Now.
EDWARD R. MURROW baleful look of the eyes, the tilt of the head - it's the real Murrow.
EDWARD R. MURROW Is that what's going around? I haven't had any calls.
EDWARD R. MURROW a blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts ... the body language of a man wishing urgently t...
EDWARD R. MURROW I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will...
EDWARD R. MURROW We cannot make good news out of bad practice.
EDWARD R. MURROW People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were.
EDWARD R. MURROW To be persuasive we must be believable;
to be believable we must be creditable;
to be cred...
EDWARD R. MURROW The politician is trained in the art of inexactitude. His words tend to be blunt or rounded, because...
EDWARD R. MURROW A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
EDWARD R. MURROW Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices--just recognize them.
EDWARD R. MURROW A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I...
EDWARD R. MURROW How you lose or keep your hair depends on how wisely you choose your parents.
EDWARD R. NIDA ‎"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
- Edward R. Murrow
EDWARD R. MURROW If you believe that this war will be decided on the home front, then you must believe that radio use...
EDWARD R. MURROW I have an old-fashioned belief that Americans like to make up their own minds on the basis of all av...
EDWARD R. MURROW [The] See It Now ... See It Now.
EDWARD R. MURROW The person of wisdom is the person of years.
EDWARD The thing that impresses me most about Americans is the way parents obey their children.
EDWARD Some follow ideas. Others think of them.
EDWARD Not all those who wander are lost.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I don't like allegories.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write un...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religio...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the eart...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who ...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabi...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not b...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Courage is found in unlikely places.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or conte...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Nothing bores me more than books where you read two pages and you know exactly how it's going to...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN One of the big breakthroughs, I think for me, was reading Robert A. Heinlein's four rules of wri...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Not all who wander are lost.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wis...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It's the job that's never started takes longest to finish.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I wish life was not so short, he thought. languages take such a time, and so do all the things one w...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Still round the corner there may wait,
A new road or a secret gate.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step ont...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has go...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Then the enchantment became more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Whether you're a history buff or a fantasy fan, Druon's epic will keep you turning pages. Th...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending!
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does no...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN An awful lot of fantasy, and even some great fantasy, falls into the mistake of assuming that a good...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Over the years, more than one reviewer has described my fantasy series, 'A Song of Ice and Fire&...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I had an encyclopedia with a list of flags in the back, so I would look at all these flags of China ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Middle English is an exciting field - almost uncharted, I begin to think, because as soon as one tur...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to ...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN He had a feeling that the answer was quite different and that he ought to know it, but he could no...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Short cuts make long delays.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a di...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Still round the corner there may wait,
A new road or a secret gate.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN 'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things on...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not t...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or j...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
and in the ...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as wel...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more p...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally sma...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Little by little, one travels far.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wa...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The original 'Hobbit' was never intended to have a sequel - Bilbo 'remained very happy t...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN There was part of me that wanted to see the world and travel to distant places, but I could only do ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I have files, I have computer files and, you know, files on paper. But most of it is really in my he...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN In my 10 years that I spent out in TV and film, I had my shares of frustrations and annoyances and d...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I try to make the readers feel they've lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a fri...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN It may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend's folly.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I like grey characters; fantasy for too long has been focused on very stereotypical heroes and villa...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN There are some examples of medieval kings who were terrible human beings but were nevertheless good ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN It's really irritating when you open a book, and 10 pages into it you know that the hero you met...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I do get invitations all of the time to play actual fantasy football, by the way, but I get the feel...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could wri...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN In October 1920 I went to Leeds as Reader in English Language, with a free commission to develop the...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I had this desire to see the world. I couldn't see any of it, but I saw it in my imagination, an...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separate...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for ...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I prefer to work with grey characters rather than black and white.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giant...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Start with short stories. After all, if you were taking up rock climbing, you wouldn't start wit...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Many writers will get a contract by selling chapters and outlines or something like that. I wrote th...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Don't write outlines; I hate outlines.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN When I'm writing from a character's viewpoint, in essence I become that character; I share t...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN The prejudice is still there, but it's breaking down. You have writers like Michael Chabon and T...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN It's like these ideas, these characters, kind of bubble up inside me, and one day they're no...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN One of the things I love, and I'm a voracious reader as well as a writer, is books that surprise...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN With a book I am the writer and I am also the director and I'm all of the actors and I'm the...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I th...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN The success that the Tolkien books had redefined modern fantasy.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I have many books that I want to write; I'd like to think that I'll be around for another 20...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN If I was a soldier going to war, I'd be pretty scared the night before a battle. It's a scar...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN