ink quotes

Ink, n. Avillainous compound†chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocyand promote intellectual crime.

- Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
  The Cynic's Word Book. Retitled  The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

'Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels By blood or ink; 'tis sweet to put an end To strife; 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend; Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.

-Rochdale
^24  Don Juan, canto1, stanza126.

It isnot good enough tospend time and ink indescribing the penultimate sensations and physical movements of people getting into a state of rut, we all know them so well.

-John Galsworthy
  On D H Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, in a letter to Edward Garnett,13  Apr.

Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in dieTinte. Modern poets mix a lot of water with their ink.

-JohannWolfgang von Goethe
  Spru«  che in Prosa, Maximen und Reflexionen, pt.6.

My pappy told me never to bet my bladder against a brewery or get into an argument with people who buy ink by the barrel.

- (Joseph) Lane Kirkland
Quoted in David Olive Business Babble (1993).

   Why didn't Eternity have this deformed age aborted ? Its birthmark is the stamp of a newspaper, its medium is printer's ink, and in its veins flows ink.

- Karl Kraus
Aphorism collected in Heinrich Fischer (ed) Beim Wort genommen (1955). Translated by Harry Zohn in Half-truths and one-and-a-half truths (1986).

One oughttoacknowledgethesignificance for mankind of the simultaneous invention of gunpowder and printer's ink.

- Karl Kraus
Aphorism collected in Heinrich Fischer (ed) Beim Wort genommen (1955). Translated by Harry Zohn in Half-truths and one-and-a-half truths (1986).

Paintings are Rorschach ink blots. Theyare what you want them to be.

- Roy Lichtenstein
  In The Times, 27 Mar.

When you sell a man a book, you don't sell him12 ounces of paper and ink and glueyou sell him a whole new life.

- Christopher Darlington Morley
Recalled on his death, 28 Mar1957.

Hatred is always a sin, my mother told me. Remember that.One drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discoloreverything like a drop of black ink inwhite milk. I was struck by that and meant to try it, but knew I shouldn't waste the milk.

- Alice ne  e Laidlaw Munro
  The Progress of Love,'The Progress of Love'.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns instinctively to long words and exhausted idiomslike cuttlefish squirting out ink.

- George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius.

To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink. For a shilling the Bruddersford United AFC offered you Conflict and Art.

-J(ohn) B(oynton) Priestley
  The Good Companions, bk.1, ch.1.

Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.

- Horace, 4th Earl of Orford Walpole
  Letter to George Montague, 30 Jul. In The Correspondence of HoraceWalpole (Yale edition,1937^8).