C. S. Forester famous quotes

03-24-2025

When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument.
-- C. S. Forester

#Mom #Mother #Drinking
I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers.
-- C. S. Forester

#Writing #Thinking #Editors
I must be like the princess who felt the pea through seven mattresses; each book is a pea.
-- C. S. Forester

#Book #Princess #Seven
The fools ran after me and I ran after the whores, foolish though I realized such a proceeding to be.
-- C. S. Forester

#Stupid #Fool #I Realized
When I die there may be a paragraph or two in the newspapers. My name will linger in the British Museum Reading Room catalogue for a space at the head of a long list of books for which no one will ever ask.
-- C. S. Forester

#Book #Reading #Museums
The work is with me when I wake up in the morning; it is with me while I eat my breakfast in bed and run through the newspaper, while I shave and bathe and dress.
-- C. S. Forester

#Running #Morning #Bed
There is no other way of writing a novel than to begin at the beginning at to continue to the end.
-- C. S. Forester

#Writing #Way #Ends
The lucky man is he who knows how much to leave to chance.
-- C. S. Forester

#Men #Lucky #Chance
Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know.
-- C. S. Forester

#Writing #Novel #Novel Writing
Perhaps that suspicion of fraud enhances the flavor.
-- C. S. Forester

#Flavor #Fraud #Suspicion
Everything was in stark and dreadful contrast with the trivial crises and counterfeit emotions of Hollywood, and I returned to England deeply moved and emotionally worn out.
-- C. S. Forester

#Hollywood #England #Emotion
I have heard of novels started in the middle, at the end, written in patches to be joined together later, but I have never felt the slightest desire to do this.
-- C. S. Forester

#Desire #Together #Ends
A man who writes for a living does not have to go anywhere in particular, and he could rarely afford to if he wanted.
-- C. S. Forester

#Writing #Men #Doe
A whim, a passing mood, readily induces the novelist to move hearth and home elsewhere. He can always plead work as an excuse to get him out of the clutches of bothersome hosts.
-- C. S. Forester

#Moving #Home #Novelists
Clairvoyant, Hornblower could foresee that in a year's time, the world would hardy remember the incident. In twenty years, it would be entirely forgotten. Yet those headless corpses up there in Muzillac; those shattered redcoats; those Frenchmen caught in the four-pounder's blast of canister -- they were as dead as if it had been a day in which history had been changed.
-- C. S. Forester

#Years #Twenties #Would Be
I thank God daily for the good fortune of my birth, for I am certain I would have made a miserable peasant.
-- C. S. Forester

#Thank God #Birth #Miserable
I did not ask for objections, but for comments, or helpful suggestions. I looked for more loyalty from you, Captain Hornblower.' That made the whole argument pointless. If Leighton only wanted servile agreement there was no sense in continuing...
-- C. S. Forester

#Loyalty #Agreement #Suggestions
Novel writing wrecks homes.
-- C. S. Forester

#Home #Writing #Wrecks

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