The Odyssey is, indeed, one of the greatest of all stories, it is the original romance of the West; but the Iliad, though a magnificent poem, is not much of a story.

It is the unbroken testimony of all history that alcoholic liquors have been used by the strongest, wisest, handsomest, and in every way best races of all times.

Between Scott on the earlier side and Dickens and Thackeray on the other, there was an immense production of novels, illustrated by not a few names which should rank high in the second class, while some would promote more than one of them to the first.

The transition state of manners and language cannot be too often insisted upon: for this affected the process at both ends, giving the artist in fictitious life an uncertain model to copy and unstable materials to work in.

Miss Austen had shown the infinite possibilities of ordinary and present things for the novelist.

The Odyssey is, indeed, one of the greatest of all stories, it is the original romance of the West; but the Iliad, though a magnificent poem, is not much of a story.

But at the time when he wrote, Englishmen, with the rarest exceptions, wrote only in French or Latin; and when they began to write in English, a man of genius, to interpret and improve on him, was not found for a long time.

The Italian prose tale had begun to exercise that influence as early as Chaucer's time: but circumstances and atmosphere were as yet unfavourable for its growth.

One of the best known, and one of the least intelligible, facts of literary history is the lateness, in Western European Literature at any rate, of prose fiction, and the comparative absence, in the two great classical languages, of what we call by that name.

But the eighteenth century, on the whole, loathed melancholy.

But even gold is not everything: and only a fanatic, and a rather foolish fanatic, would say that this style of fiction summed up and exhausted all the good that fiction could give and do.

To pass to the deluge, and beyond it, and to come to close quarters with our proper division, the origin of Romance itself is a very debatable subject, or rather it is a subject which the wiser mind will hardly care to debate much.

But dinner is dinner a meal at which not so much to eat it becomes difficult to eat much at it as you grow older as to drink to talk to flirt to discuss to rejoice at the closing of the day. I do not think anything serious should be done after it as nothing should before breakfast.

Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that humor excites in those who lack it.

Oh yeah, I'm a huge romance fan. And some women like action.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

For me, romance isn't an over-the-top act. It's someone offering to help and to support me. Or if that person thinks I'm making the wrong decision, he'll tell me. I want him to be honest, because being that honest takes a lot of guts.

Yes, romance has found it's way into my heart in the past.

Romance, like the rabbit at the dog track, is the elusive, fake, and never attained reward which, for the benefit and amusement of our masters, keeps us running and thinking in safe circles.

The word 'romance,' according to the dictionary, means excitement, adventure, and something extremely real. Romance should last a lifetime.

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

I'm not cynical about marriage or romance. I enjoyed being married. And although being single was fun for a while, there was always the risk of dating someone who'd owned a lunch box with my picture on it.

Writers of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, or are likely to be.

Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth.

I don't like to search too much. I find it is easier when romance finds you.

Romance is mush, stifling those who strive.

Wave after wave of love flooded the stage and washed over me, the beginning of the one great durable romance of my life.

There is grand romance in The Lord of the Rings. It's an important part of epic literature.

American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.

Deep down, I'm a Texas girl looking for that big romance every girl dreams about. Biologically, I look forward to being a cornerstone of a family. I'll be in my glory when I have a child on my knee.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

I love Elmore Leonard. To me, True Romance is basically like an Elmore Leonard movie.

I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.

I also wanted to make a record that was about other things than romance, yeah, after two years on the road singing all the songs from the first album, I got kind of tired of that.

Modern science, then, so far from being an enemy of romance, is seen on every hand to be its sympathetic and resourceful friend, its swift and irresistible helper in its serious need, and an indulgent minister to its lighter fancies.

A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.

The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending Western subjects.

The telephone, which interrupts the most serious conversations and cuts short the most weighty observations, has a romance of its own.

Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.

I think that musicians should never forget about the intimacy of bringing two people together, and the aesthetic transference where you're almost vicariously involved in a romance between other people.

Yeah, but there's nobody who represents romance to me like Cary Grant.

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.

I stayed in submission to my husband, and he allowed me to do anything I wanted to. I felt like I was lucky to have that kind of romance.

I don't have this fantasy about marriage anymore. Everyone says it takes hard work. Well, it kind of does - and I'm much more pragmatic about romance than I used to be.

I'm 31 now. I think I'm beginning to understand what life is, what romance is, and what a relationship means.

I think that men know how to romance a woman and most do it well, at least for a time, otherwise women wouldn't marry them. The problem is that most of them begin to rest on their laurels.

Comics were going down for the second time and here, all of a sudden, came this thing and for the next fifteen years, romance comics were about the top sellers in the field; they outsold everything.

The romance stuff is easy. A sex scene... that's hard, because you don't know what to do. Those scenes are awkward.

The Odyssey is, indeed, one of the greatest of all stories, it is the original romance of the West; but the Iliad, though a magnificent poem, is not much of a story.