If you think of something, do it.

Plenty of people often think, “I’d like to do this,...
LYDIA DAVIS If I was writing about an academic or a more difficult person, I would use the Latinate vocabulary m...
LYDIA DAVIS The existence of another, competing translation is a good thing, in general, and only immediately di...
LYDIA DAVIS Ordering is difficult. It's like arranging pieces of music in a concert: What do you put first? ...
LYDIA DAVIS I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, altho...
LYDIA DAVIS My stories are sometimes closer to poems or meditations, but often there is at least a little narrat...
LYDIA DAVIS There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to lea...
LYDIA DAVIS I follow my interests pretty - I don't like the word 'intuitively.' I follow them in a k...
LYDIA DAVIS I can talk for a long time only when it's about something boring.
LYDIA DAVIS The fact that he does not tell me the truth all the time makes me not sure of his truth at certain t...
LYDIA DAVIS He says to us: They don't really do anything. Then he adds: But of course there is not a lot for the...
LYDIA DAVIS I started writing the one-sentence stories when I was translating 'Swann's Way.' There w...
LYDIA DAVIS I copied the address into my address book, erasing an earlier one that had not been good for very lo...
LYDIA DAVIS This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip—I keep trying to read it. I have gone...
LYDIA DAVIS Even though I believe a superlative translation can achieve timelessness, that doesn't mean I th...
LYDIA DAVIS I think the close work I do as a translator pays off in my writing - I'm always searching for mu...
LYDIA DAVIS If a translation doesn't have obvious writing problems, it may seem quite all right at first gla...
LYDIA DAVIS Of course we may have any number of translations of a given text - the more the better, really.
LYDIA DAVIS Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn't occur to peop...
LYDIA DAVIS I am simply not interested, at this point, in creating narrative scenes between characters.
LYDIA DAVIS We all have an ongoing narrative inside our heads, the narrative that is spoken aloud if a friend as...
LYDIA DAVIS Heart weeps.
Head tries to help heart.
Head tells heart how it is, again:
You will lo...
LYDIA DAVIS Professionally, I was at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and did lots of things there, and then I won...
LYDIA LEONARD I've seen a few wild grizzly bears, mostly in Alaska and British Columbia, and always from a dis...
LYDIA MILLET Aggressive female icons have been chronically demeaned... It's fine for male artists to be angry...
LYDIA LUNCH In Nagasaki, American planes did drop warning leaflets - but not till Aug. 10, a day after the city ...
LYDIA MILLET In Hiroshima, bombed Aug. 6, 1945, no warning was given of the air attack, and thus no escape was po...
LYDIA MILLET Oil drilling and coal mining are killing endangered wildlife, polluting rivers, creating smog over w...
LYDIA MILLET The strength of a nation, especially of a republican nation, is in the intelligent and well ordered ...
LYDIA SIGOURNEY In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry of idleness, good or ev...
LYDIA SIGOURNEY The American way of life, as I see it, is really the American way of death. Everything is determined...
LYDIA LUNCH Ever since they announced that golf would be returning to the Olympics, I thought, 'Hey, I wanna...
LYDIA KO For almost two centuries, American gray wolves, vilified in fact as well as fiction, were the victim...
LYDIA MILLET Because we have so much eye candy and mind candy, spending so much time trying to pay the rent, all ...
LYDIA LUNCH The comic novels I did when I was in my 20s had a harder edge - less sympathy for people. Or a sympa...
LYDIA MILLET I've never wanted a quiet life.
LYDIA CACHO I just prefer instrumental. I don't need to hear what other people are singing. And if I need mu...
LYDIA LUNCH In October 2014, for the first time in almost three-quarters of a century, a gray wolf was seen lopi...
LYDIA MILLET I can be pretty dense about my own basic needs, when my focus is getting through the many small task...
LYDIA MILLET I'm a very sympathetic person, but that doesn't always come across in my work because I'...
LYDIA LUNCH I'm nihilistic, antagonistic, violent, horrible - but not obliterated, yet. I just refuse to be ...
LYDIA LUNCH When it comes to American Indians, mainstream America suffers from willful blindness.
LYDIA MILLET I've played such good golf, and it was hard coming up and it wasn't easy in any matches or a...
LYDIA KO African elephants have long been thought of as a single species, but a critical mass of genetic stud...
LYDIA MILLET Within the macho-melodrama tropes of the superhero genre, it's fair to say 'Watchmen' st...
LYDIA MILLET If people could understand how much pleasure they could have by themselves, I think everyone would b...
LYDIA LUNCH In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry or idleness, good or ev...
LYDIA SIGOURNEY Without elephants, Africa's landscape would be unrecognizable, yet these animals have fallen by ...
LYDIA MILLET About half of all potential future global warming emissions from United States fossil fuels lie in o...
LYDIA MILLET Most climate debates have focused on cutting the use of fossil fuels. But besides a few high-profile...
LYDIA MILLET What makes 'The Lorax' such a powerful fable is partly its shamelessness. It pulls no punche...
LYDIA MILLET 'Dept. of Speculation' contains numerous enviable lines.
LYDIA MILLET In 1805, the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, making their way across the West, were wa...
LYDIA MILLET I came to understand that a German nudist, in 1984, loved little more than to work on his or her tan...
LYDIA MILLET The female format is a beautiful one in which to function. Foolhardy as it may be. I change my image...
LYDIA LUNCH I think it's important to encourage gluttony in all its formats.
LYDIA LUNCH Those are agricultural products. We do promote Tennessee products.
LYDIA LENKER Television's so quick, and there's so many other fun elements to it, but you don't get s...
LYDIA LEONARD To write erotic proza is not statisfactory. You are always exited but never done.
LYDIA ROOD Fiction should be an ethically safe space, free of fancy ideas. It should be dedicated modestly to r...
LYDIA MILLET In the 1970s, Safari Club International asked the federal government to approve its import of 1,125 ...
LYDIA MILLET I think the best fiction is a form of psychological suspense, even though I don't really write i...
LYDIA MILLET I am a humanist not a feminist. There's a big difference.
LYDIA LUNCH I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance - it's a silly thing to strife for. But satisfaction...
LYDIA LUNCH The Free Body Culture gave me a gift I might never have received had I refused to play along. It lef...
LYDIA MILLET The Safari Club International has worked the legal system hard to try to keep polar bears - threaten...
LYDIA MILLET I've always been interested in obsessive, insane people.
LYDIA MILLET Wyoming, home to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons, is also the country's largest c...
LYDIA MILLET The summer after I got divorced, my children asked to sleep in my bed again. It would be the first t...
LYDIA MILLET L.A., for me, is a perfect microcosm of America - because it's so profligate, and so glamorous, ...
LYDIA MILLET Anne Boleyn isn't a sympathetic character, but I like that she isn't a people pleaser. She&#...
LYDIA LEONARD It's a friendly act to write a lighthearted book.
LYDIA MILLET Domestic realism has dominated the American marketplace for decades now. It leeches into literary fi...
LYDIA MILLET I'm separated by other performers with whom I might be lumped, since what I say is so intensely ...
LYDIA LUNCH I had to de-program myself. From myself. Had to reinvent rituals of purification. So full of the vag...
LYDIA LUNCH I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you&#...
LYDIA LUNCH Better to forget, better to let go of the bitterness. I say bitterness is only good in medicine, or ...
LYDIA KWA The Bond Between
Cousins Cannot
Be Broken!
LYDIA HOWE If someone says 'grunge' or 'punk,' you know what the sound is, but if you say '...
LYDIA LUNCH We absolutely know we were the catalyst for this. We know that if we hadn't started (our efforts), n...
LYDIA CABALLERO If what I write is literature, I guess you'd better emphasize the 'litter.'
LYDIA LUNCH Today is a... digital incarnation of Oz - the Internet - we are a motley group of fools from lions t...
LYDIA VORSTEVELD I mean, she was hysterical crying.
LYDIA FERNANDEZ A 3-foot putt can be more nerve-racking than a 9-foot putt because a 3-foot putt you should be getti...
LYDIA KO The rooms of his apartment were full with the dog home again, convalescing. He was satisfied to know...
LYDIA MILLET Remember, cousins are forever!
LYDIA HOWE We don’t want to be the conquistadors. We want to be Charles Darwin.
LYDIA MILLET We also taught them self-reliance, courtship and sexual discipline as they head towards maturity.
LYDIA KANDA Jennifer is not a criminal.
LYDIA SARTAIN We all have our skill sets, right?
LYDIA MILLET I've met more than one person in their early 20s who has never heard of Jackie Onassis, though m...
LYDIA LEONARD I knew who Jackie Kennedy was in terms of being the wife of JFK and being a clothes horse, and I kne...
LYDIA LEONARD I'm like a one-woman protest machine.
LYDIA LUNCH Indeed, the hype around 'Watchmen' is its curse. If you want to enjoy the comic for what it ...
LYDIA MILLET If I make a bogey or three putt I'm on fire inside. But it's not like you're going to pl...
LYDIA KO Two weeks ago at the U.S. Amateur, my mom caddied, and that is kind of a different feeling, because ...
LYDIA KO As soon as a regular guy like Bill Clinton becomes the president, he wears a mantle of greatness. He...
LYDIA MILLET 'Broadway' is one of the big American words. It's exciting to be given the chance to rat...
LYDIA LEONARD I worry about the very pernicious way we elevate and separate ourselves from other beasts, the way w...
LYDIA MILLET She said she bit him and kicked him and that's when she said she seen his tattoo on his hand and a s...
LYDIA FERNANDEZ I think we need more acute care. What if you're too sick to be transferred to San Antonio?
LYDIA CABALLERO The biggest insult is that I've been called an exaggerator... I tell the truth as I know it. I d...
LYDIA LUNCH In December 2011, a wild gray wolf set foot in California, the first sighting in almost a century. H...
LYDIA MILLET Economic and health statistics, as well as police-violence statistics, shed light on the pressures o...
LYDIA MILLET The grizzly bears that live in and around Yellowstone make up almost half the population in the lowe...
LYDIA MILLET Um, yeah 15-year-olds don't lead at an LPGA event all the time. But like I said, I'm very su...
LYDIA KO I have always wished the present to resemble memory: because the present can be flat at times, and b...
LYDIA MILLET The gun is mightier than the pen, was our true opinion, and the RPG is mightier still.
LYDIA MILLET When 'Watchmen' was published in 1986, the vast majority of comics readers deemed it a water...
LYDIA MILLET It seems to me that the time for subtlety in our American life has passed.
LYDIA MILLET We read our children stories starring elephants and monkeys and bears to teach them about nobility, ...
LYDIA MILLET Live people ignore the strange and unusual. I myself am ... strange and unusual.
LYDIA DEETEZ The world is entirely magical, the only illusion is that it isn't...
LYDIA ANDAL Unlike in the FGM rite where girls are prepared for marriage after circumcision, here we prepare the...
LYDIA KANDA They want to keep the boycott as a last resort.
LYDIA HERNANDEZ I am excited about what happened. For us, just getting all the organizations coming together, to sen...
LYDIA HERNANDEZ People's backs are against the wall. It's reaching a boiling point. We're going to continue applying...
LYDIA HERNANDEZ I just found out today we have seven sex offenders in this area.
LYDIA FERNANDEZ Let them come and see our sick veterans, and say we don't need a hospital.
LYDIA CABALLERO Most people are really delighted to see some forward motion.
LYDIA BREWSTER I don't care if the children find success in the arts, although I know many will because they have g...
LYDIA BREWSTER We are right behind her. The neighborhood is with her and the organization all the way.
LYDIA BREWSTER They've grown up with the computer, so they expect things to be faster, including cooking. They like...
LYDIA BOTHAM They've grown up with the computer, so they expect things to be faster, including cooking.
LYDIA BOTHAM It was the best move for increasing our overall efficiency and that helps us improve our returns to ...
LYDIA BOTHAM It is critical that skills acquisition should be fast-tracked and that mentoring relationships betwe...
LYDIA BICI Among the logistics arranged for successful participants are accommodation, health insurance, an all...
LYDIA BICI The focus would be on both established and recently graduated unemployed professionals as well as ex...
LYDIA BICI This is obviously a very important decision. The appointment will be made in a timely fashion, but t...
LYDIA LENKER He appointed a Correction Commissioner he has total confidence in, and he knows Commissioner Little ...
LYDIA LENKER The governor continues to stress fiscal responsibility to ensure the state doesn't end up with a def...
LYDIA LENKER These were all things that we are just putting out there that are going to be in his budget. We were...
LYDIA LENKER Re-election doesn't lead us. These are good issues.
LYDIA LENKER It's a fairly technical matter. Clearly there is no indication of a misappropriation of funds.
LYDIA LENKER Abilene could be so cute with just a little help. We've got a lot of neat homes and a lot of nice pe...
LYDIA LONG We have seen improvement but it's like pulling teeth.
LYDIA LONG I always kind of felt there's like this twisted love relationship between King Kong and Fay Wray and...
LYDIA RUTH We think it's great to be the star of the movie.
LYDIA RUTH All they have to do is show up and bring their marriage license.
LYDIA RUTH We don't want to take any chances, and we don't want to cause any bird death. But we have people cal...
LYDIA RUTH They touted their ability to turn inventors' ideas into profitable products. But fewer than 1 percen...
LYDIA PARNES What we're looking for is to have small businesses apply standards that are reasonable in light of t...
LYDIA PARNES These defendants intentionally used personal messages as a cover-up for commercial messages. Decepti...
LYDIA PARNES Charging consumers for bogus collect calls is stealing. The Federal Trade Commission will not tolera...
LYDIA PARNES A recent surf [of the Internet] showed some sites offering these services were registered to foreign...
LYDIA PARNES More than half were no longer advertising the sale of these records.
LYDIA PARNES This is an important right that American consumers have. We want them to be very careful when they'r...
LYDIA PARNES It's difficult to parse out the effect of the law versus technology's impact on the amount of spam.
LYDIA PANES We're offering both good news and cautionary notes.
LYDIA PANES It's awful for her, it's unfortunate, no matter what her status was. I did not know her legal status...
LYDIA PADILLA There are people who basically want to increase diversity and have someone available at their compan...
LYDIA PADILLA It is extremely competitive to get and keep bilingual people. I get several requests a week. Probabl...
LYDIA PADILLA They felt happy, because their voice was heard. Now that they know everyone is going to sit down tog...
LYDIA MUNOZ They are concerned because of the management. They're very abusive.
LYDIA MUNOZ [She was] feeling if she couldn't get through in the days to come, that she would have that, that sh...
LYDIA SARTAIN I believe Jennifer committed no crime. I understand and respect [Gwinnett County] District Attorney ...
LYDIA SARTAIN Jennifer asked that I convey her appreciation of the many prayers and statements of support she has ...
LYDIA SARTAIN TPWD generally allows a one-year grace period and issues verbal warnings to help educate people abou...
LYDIA SALDANA That's something we do with any new law any time there is a significant change. (Issuing a citation)...
LYDIA SALDANA That's a human error. He should have colored the other side. It was the right side of the face and n...
LYDIA SALDANA We left messages for those who weren't home. So, hopefully, they will call back later and donate.
LYDIA SMITH Her daughter is very distraught. She's been trying to get online and see if she's in one of the shel...
LYDIA SMITH Maybe some people don't feel scared when they think about comets and supernovas. Maybe they think it...
LYDIA NETZER Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture.
LYDIA M. CHILD That man's best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature's infinite perfection, matters no...
LYDIA M. CHILD Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame.
LYDIA M CHILD The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, ...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD That man's best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature's infinite perfection, matters no...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth. Instead of its bringing sad and melanchol...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD It is my mission to help in the breaking down of classes, and to make all men feel as if they were...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold;
Thy home may be lo...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theat...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angel...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Home -- that blessed word, which opens to the human heart the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and he...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. I...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD Over the river and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way LYDIA MARIA CHILD Reverence is the highest quality of man's nature; and that individual, or nation, which has it sligh...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.
LYDIA M. CHILD Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame.
LYDIA M. CHILD I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as...
LYDIA M. CHILD None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as...
LYDIA M. CHILD You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to con...
LYDIA M. CHILD The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and the crimes of humanity, all lie in...
LYDIA M. CHILD A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.
LYDIA M. CHILD Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. I...
LYDIA M. CHILD Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is...
LYDIA M. CHILD That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, m...
LYDIA M. CHILD Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is...
LYDIA M. CHILD Flow on, forever, in thy glorious robe Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on Unfathomed and r...
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY And say to mothers what a holy charge Is theirs--with what a kingly power their love Might rul...
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY Over the river and through the wood, To grandfather's house we go; The horse knows the way To carry ...
LYDIA M. CHILD You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to con...
LYDIA M. CHILD