J.J. Brown Quotes

Integrity rings like fine glass. True, clear, and reassuring.

The first step to wisdom is to be sure one says and does what one believes.

A cat likes to hear you calling him. He sits in a bush a yard from your shoes - and listens.

The child who ran weeping to you with a cut finger is now brought home, smiling gamely, with a broken collarbone and incredible contusions- 'it wasn't Jezebels fault, Dad.'

The work of a garden bears visible fruits-in a world where most of our labours seem suspiciously meaningless.

Bears being sent through the mail should never be squashed up to make them fit. It gives them indigestion.

For sheer excitement you can keep movie premieres and roller-coasters . An empty white canvas waiting to be filled. That's the thing.

However time or circumstances may come between mother and her child, their lives are interwoven forever.

Give a pup a home and a little love and he will give you his heart forever.

In choosing a course of action, it's best to take the tack of kindness.

If you work all the time, you lose the intermittence of reflection and thought at every stage. Take breaks - for you and your work.

Any fool can steer a ship, sir. Its just knowing where to take it.

Endless sorrow has fallen upon my heart.

The best time to buy a home is always five years ago.

Make sure to be well informed before accepting the challenge of a commission - check out that you have a source of reference readily available.

Writers are the moral purifiers of the culture. We may not be pure ourselves but we must tell the truth, which is a purifying act.

Pain isn't always the enemy.

I believe our concept of romantic love is irrational, impossible to fulfill and the cause of many broken homes. No human being can maintain that rarefied atmosphere of 'true love'.

Life matters more than any painting, novel, film, or great big diamond.

whoever said progress was a positive thing has never been to Florida or California.

It's a big jump from smart to motherwit.

Dying's not so bad. At least I won't have to answer the telephone.

Do not judge. Never presume to judge another human being anyway. That's up to heaven.

To love without role, without power plays, is revolution.

I have changed my definition of tragedy. I now think tragedy is not foul deeds done to a person (usually noble in some manner) but rather that tragedy is irresolvable conflict.

compromise is the work of mature people.

I write poetry. It comes naturally to me, but from a technical point of view it forces me to pay close attention to language and to scan.

One thing Mom taught me, "You're going to be dead a long time, so do it now!"

I believe every change any word has undergone probably originated in ignorance.

An army of lovers shall not fail.

Political elections are not life and death.

[A pariah is] something like a martyr with more suffering and less class.

Possession of a secret is no guarantee of its truth.

Language is decanted and shared. If only one person is left alive speaking a language - the case with some American Indian languages - the language is dead. Language takes two and their multiples.

piety is like garlic: a little goes a long way.

Tennis is physical chess.

In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.

Adjectives are the curse of America.

It really doesn't take brains to be a politician as much as it takes stomach. Both would be nice, but in America we have accepted diminishing returns in this arena.

Novels, like human beings, usually have their beginnings in the dark.

Money and writing appear to be mutually exclusive.

Today we live in a society suffering from ethical rickets.

Where there is no faith, devils are a necessity.

... I distrust manifest knowledge.

Odd thing about death ... it reaffirms life.

The dead are the only people to have permanent dwellings.

I've got splinters in my nose from the best publishing doors in town.

Hollywood called just as I crested thirty. My novels did not and still do not interest them, but my writing ability did.

I think in the years to come what Reagan will be remembered for is that he had the chance to stop the plague and he chose not to because the 'right people' were dying.

England is an aquarium, not a nation.