A Quote by Margaret Deland

Books are like sapphires; they must be polished - polished! or else you insult your readers.

Margaret Deland

Quote Topics

Books Else Insult Like Must Polished Readers Sapphires Your

Quote Author

Margaret Deland
American - Novelist
February 23, 1857 - January 13, 1945

Five hundred words a day is what I aim for. And I don't go on to the next chapter until I've polished and polished and polished the one I'm working on.

Elinor Lipman

I was so mad at my agent. I had polished and polished and polished [the play], and he referred to it as a draft. I wrote him a bitter letter: How can you call this a draft? I don't do drafts! By now I've done 18, and its turning, in the rehearsal room, into a 19th.

Cynthia Ozick

Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. There may possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no polished language without books.

Samuel Johnson

Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

Lord Chesterfield

I definitely feel I'm outside of the polished pop girl group, which feels right. I don't think I could keep up that polished surface on purpose.

Tove Lo

You work on an idea, your first interpretation is very raw and you work it and you work it and it gets polished and polished. It gets to a certain level and then it comes down off that peak.

Kim Weston

The key to my accuracy is making sure my feet are set right and trying to have a more polished throwing motion, a more polished stroke, you can say. When my feet are right, my hips are allowed to open a little better, which is kind of where your accuracy comes from.

Josh Allen

My mother kept all my awards on the sideboard of her front room, and she polished them. She polished everything religiously. And it doesn't take long for the very thin layer of gold to disappear and the base metal underneath to show through.

Glenda Jackson

Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more - more unseen forms become manifest to him.

Rumi

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.

Daniel Defoe

Observation is like a piece of glass, which, as a mirror, must be very smooth, and must be very carefully polished, in order that it may reflect the image pure and undistorted.

Justus von Liebig

Do you dance, Mr. Darcy?" Darcy: "Not if I can help it!" Sir William: "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies." Mr. Darcy: "Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world; every savage can dance.

Jane Austen

My hair is wild and free, but I've always been told that [straight hair] is more polished, and a more polished version of yourself is a better version of yourself. That it's more professional.

Erin Wasson

Dear friend, Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it dean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.

Al-Ghazali

Memories must enter the bloodstream, must churn awhile through the heart's mill, must be crushed and polished, be nearly forgotten or cling like burs to other stories before they spill forth in purple patterns, shapes of small bones and worm rot, shapes of clouds and the spaces between leaves.