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1 " When I started writing I wanted the best tools. I skipped right over chisels on rocks, stylus on wet clay plates, quills and fountain pens, even mechanical pencils, and went straight to one of the first popular spin-offs of the aerospace program: the ballpoint pen. They were developed for comber navigators in the war because fountain pens would squirt all over your leather bomber jacket at altitude. (I have a cherished example of the next generation ballpoint, a pressurized Space Pen cleverly designed to work in weightlessness, given to me by Spider Robinson. At least, I cherish it when I can find it. It is also cleverly designed to seek out the lowest point of your desk, roll off, then find the lowest point on the floor, under a heavy piece of furniture. That's because it is cylindrical and lacks a pocket clip to keep it from rolling. In space, I presume it would float out of your pocket and find a forgotten corner of your spacecraft to hide in. NASA spent $3 million developing it. Good job, guys. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.) "
― John Varley , The John Varley Reader
2 " In a sense, the recording stylus and its reverse component have defeated time. Up until a little more than a generation ago, the sound of a word once uttered, a violin note once played, were possible treasures dropped into the none too safe repository of human memory; but the same sounds transferred to a wax or plastic or film or wire can live and vibrate again fifteen minutes or fifty years from now. "
― ,
3 " Saepa stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint scripturas. (Turn the stylus [to erase] often if you would write something worthy of being reread.) "
― Horatius , The Satires of Horace
4 " We should do this on computer," she said, chalking it carefully for the eighty-ninth time. " With a drawing pad." " Nonsense. You're lucky I don't make you inscribe it with a stylus on a wax tablet, like the old days," Myrnin snorted. " Children. Spoiled children, always playing with the shinest toy." " Computers are more efficient!" " I can perform calculations on that abacus faster than you can solve them on your computer," Myrnin sneered.Okay, now he was pissing her off. " Prove it!" " What?" " Prove it." She backed off on her tone, but Myrnin wasn't looking angry; he was looking strangely interested. He stared at her for a second in silence, and then he got the biggest, oddest smile she'd ever seen on the face of a vampire." All right," he said. " A contest. Computer versus abacus." She wasn't at all sure now that was a good idea, even if it had been her idea, essentially. " Um -- what do I win?" More importantly, what do I lose? Making bargains was a way of life in Morganville, and it was a lot like making deals with man-eating fairies. Better be careful what you ask for." Your freedom," he said solemnly. His eyes were wide and guileless, his too-young face shining with honesty. " I will tell Amelie you were not suited to the work. She'll let you go about your life, such as it is." Good prize. Too good. Claire swallowed hard. " And if I lose?" " Then I eat you," Myrnin said. "
5 " The author sees Luke's loyalty to the apostle Paul " depicted architecturally in the great church at Rome known as St. Paul Outside the Walls. There, a statue of Luke holding a writing stylus commemorates not only his work as a Gospel author but his faithfulness to Paul. "
6 " Writing is making love under a crescent moon: I see shadows of what’s to come, and it’s enough; I have faith in what I can’t see and it’s substantiated by a beginning, a climax, an ending. And if it’s an epic novel in hand, I watch the sunrise amid the twigs and dewing grass; the wordplay is what matters.Simply put, I’m in love, and any inconvenience is merely an afterthought.The sun tips the horizon; the manuscript is complete. The author, full of profound exhaustion, lays his stylus aside. His labor of love stretches before him, beautiful, content, sleeping, until the next crescent moon stars the evening sky. "
― Chila Woychik ,
