Accidents Quote by Tom Shippey

“The cry that 'fantasy is escapist' compared to the novel is only an echo of the older cry that novels are 'escapist' compared with biography, and to both cries one should make the same answer: that freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter a general applicability from a particular story.”

Tom Shippey

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Explore all 7 Tom Shippey quotes

More Accidents quotes

Almost all accidents take place because of human distraction.

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It was no accident, no coincidence, that the seasons came round and round year after year. It was the Lord speaking to us all and showing us over and over again the birth, life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. It was like a best-loved story being told day after day with…

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No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.

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In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted: two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance; before he can spot the point…

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By education I am an Englishman, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim and a Hindu only by accident of birth.

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I made out with a homeless guy by accident. I had no idea -- he was really tan, he had no shoes on. I…

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Naturally I feel no shame in writing these things because of the time which separates the moment when they are written--when only I can see them--from the moment when they will be read by other people, a moment which I feel will never come. By then I could have had an accident or died; a war or a revolution could…

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