A Quote by Natalie Clifford Barney

To mis-quote is the very foundation of original style. The success of most writers is almost entirely due to continuous and courageous abuse of familiar misquotation.

Natalie Clifford Barney

Quote Topics

Abuse Almost Continuous Courageous Due Entirely Familiar Foundation Most Original Quote Style Success Very Writers

Quote Author

Natalie Clifford Barney
American - Novelist
October 31, 1876 - February 2, 1972

Many survivors insist they're not courageous: 'If I were courageous I would have stopped the abuse.' 'If I were courageous, I wouldn't be scared'...Most of us have it mixed up. You don't start with courage and then face fear. You become courageous because you face your fear.

Laura Davies

The original sense of the word 'influence' is 'to flow into.' For the most part, these writers that I admire... their style flows into me without my intervention, which is what explains the broad range of writers who I've been compared with; it reflects my reading.

Teju Cole

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

Groucho Marx

The greater part of our writers have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them: and those who never quote in return are seldom quoted.

Isaac D'Israeli

Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones.

William Shenstone

Among the many evils which prevail under the sun, the abuse of words is not the least considerable. By the influence of time, and the perversion of fashion, the plainest and most unequivocal may be so altered, as to have a meaning assigned them almost diametrically opposite to their original signification.

Hannah More

It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted!

Isaac D'Israeli

A writer can get into a vast deal of trouble through misquotation. If you ever want to receive lots of mail, I recommend you get a Shakespeare quote wrong in a magazine or newspaper.

Joseph Epstein

That the means of imperialist policy overshadow almost entirely its original ends has tremendous implications.

Paul A. Baran

It's very, very rare you find something really original and also because a lot of original stuff, most of the time has no chance, because it's so expensive to make something famous or put it in people's head that it's the one to see, it's like awareness has to be almost like at 80% or 90% if you make an expensive summer movie and that's very hard to do with anything an the White House naturally is in itself some sort of a trademark.

Roland Emmerich

As a doctor, you are out on call most nights, so you don't get continuous sleep, and that becomes something that is familiar to you. So, working hard doesn't bother me.

Mahathir Mohamad

No building is better than its structural foundation, and no man (woman) is better than his (her) mental foundation. When I prepared my original Success Pyramid years ago, I put industriousness and enthusiasm as the two cornerstones with LOYALTY right in the middle of the pyramid - Loyalty to yourself and to all those dependent upon you.

John Wooden

I think the Chainsaw remake is very good and captures the spirit of the original film. It's true to the tone of the original, to the point that it's almost a companion piece

Tobe Hooper

I think the Chainsaw remake is very good and captures the spirit of the original film. It's true to the tone of the original, to the point that it's almost a companion piece.

Tobe Hooper

The success of a terrorist operation depends almost entirely on the amount of publicity it receives.