100 Best Sayings About Literature, Literature Quotes

South African literature is a literature in bondage. It is a less-than-fully-human literature. It is exactly the kind of literature you would expect people to write from prison.

J. M. Coetzee

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J. M. Coetzee Quotes

Literature must become party literature. Down with unpartisan litterateurs! Down with the superman of literature! Literature must become a part of the general cause of the proletariat.

Vladimir Lenin

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Vladimir Lenin Quotes

Literature cannot develop between the categories "permitted""""not permitted""""this you can and that you can't." Literature that is not the air of its contemporary society, that dares not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers, such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a facade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as waste paper instead of being read. -Letter to the Fourth National Congress of Soviet Writers

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

Christ and the life of Christ is at this moment inspiring the literature of the world as never before, and raising it up a witness against waste and want and war. It may confess Him, as in Tolstoi's work it does, or it may deny Him, but it cannot exclude Him; and in the degree that it ignores His spirit, modern literature is artistically inferior. In other words, all good literature is now Christmas literature.

William Dean Howells

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William Dean Howells Quotes

Nothing is harmful to literature except censorship, and that almost never stops literature going where it wants to go either, because literature has a way of surpassing everything that blocks it and growing stronger for the exercise.

Ali Smith

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Ali Smith Quotes

I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.

Kurt Vonnegut

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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

I looked into the literature on this, " said Nightingale, "and it wasn't very helpful." "There's a literature about this?" "You'd be amazed, Constable, about what there's a literature on.

Ben Aaronovitch

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Ben Aaronovitch Quotes

Given the devaluation of literature and of the study of foreign languages per se in the United States, as well as the preponderance of theory over text in graduate literature studies, creative writing programs keep literature courses populated.

Marilyn Hacker

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Marilyn Hacker Quotes

Most British playwrights of my generation, as well as younger folks, apparently feel somewhat obliged to Russian literature - and not only those writing for theatres. Russian literature is part of the basic background knowledge for any writer. So there is nothing exceptional in the interest I had towards Russian literature and theatre. Frankly, I couldn't image what a culture would be like without sympathy towards Russian literature and Russia, whether we'd be talking about drama or Djagilev.

Tom Stoppard

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Tom Stoppard Quotes

Human beings don't necessarily exist inside of (or correspond to) the neat racial, gendered or national boxes into which we often unthinkingly place them. It's a mistake to ask literature to reinforce such structures. Literature tends to crack them. Literature is where we free ourselves.

Mohsin Hamid

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Mohsin Hamid Quotes

The body of literature, with its limits and edges, exists outside some people and inside others. Only after the writer lets literature shape her can she perhaps shape literature.

Annie Dillard

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Annie Dillard Quotes

I love the Russian classics very much, the Russian classical literature. But I also read modern literature. As far as Russian literature is concerned, I am very fond of Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I also enjoy reading Gogol very much.

Vladimir Putin

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Vladimir Putin Quotes

Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom. Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

Susan Sontag

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Susan Sontag Quotes

These studies are the result of my attempt to extract the essence of literature. Literature is either the essential or nothing. I believe that the Evil-an acute form of Evil-which it expresses, has a sovereign value for us. But this concept does not exclude morality: on the contrary, it demands a 'hypermorality.' Literature is communication. Communication requires loyalty. A rigorous morality results from complicity in the knowledge of Evil, which is the basis of intense communication. -Literature and Evil

Georges Bataille

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Georges Bataille Quotes

For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time.

Ford Madox Ford

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Ford Madox Ford Quotes

I'm kind of a reluctant Anglophile. My mother's a children's librarian, and all of the children's literature I read was from her childhood - E. Nesbit and Dickens, which isn't children's literature at all, but I was sort of steeped in English literature. I thought I was of that world.

Jefferson Mays

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Jefferson Mays Quotes

One task of literature is to formulate questions and construct counterstatements to the reigning pieties. And even when art is not oppositional, the arts gravitate toward contrariness. Literature is dialogue: responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures evolve and interact with one another.

Susan Sontag

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Susan Sontag Quotes

Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another.

George Saunders

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George Saunders Quotes

Our fiction is not merely in flight from the physical data of the actual world... it is, bewilderingly and embarrassingly, a gothic fiction, nonrealistic and negative, sadist and melodramatic - a literature of darkness and the grotesque in a land of light and affirmation... our classic [American] literature is a literature of horror for boys

Leslie Fielder

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Leslie Fielder Quotes

Literature had torn Tessa and me apart, or prevented us from merging in the first place. That was its role in the world, I'd started to fear: to conjure up disagreements that didn't matter and inspire people to act on them as though they mattered more than anything. Without literature, humans would all be one. Warfare was simply literature in arms. The pen was the reason man invented the sword.

Walter Kirn

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Walter Kirn Quotes

We were supposed to be an English literature class, but Miss Nesbitt used literature to teach real life. She said she didn't have time to teach us like a regular English teacher-we were too far behind. Instead, she taught us the world through literature.

Phillip M. Hoose

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Phillip M. Hoose Quotes

In the same period, Polish literature also underwent some significant changes. From social-political literature, which had a great tradition and strong motivation to be that way, Polish literature changed its focus to a psychological rather than a social one.

Andrzej Wajda

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Andrzej Wajda Quotes

Books should confuse. Literature abhors the typical. Literature flows to the particular, the mundane, the greasiness of paper, the taste of warm beer, the smell of onion or quince. Auden has a line: "Ports have names they call the sea." Just so will literature describe life familiarly, regionally, in terms life is accustomed to use -- high or low matters not. Literature cannot by this impulse betray the grandeur of its subject -- there is only one subject: What it feels like to be alive. Nothing is irrelevant. Nothing is typical.

Richard Rodriguez

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Richard Rodriguez Quotes

I see no reason in morality, why literature should not have as one of its intentions the arousing of thoughts of lust. It is one of the effects, perhaps one of the functions of literature to arouse desire, and I can discover no grounds for saying that sexual pleasure should not be among the objects of desire which literature presents to us, along with heroism, virtue, peace, death, food, wisdom, God, etc.

Lionel

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Lionel Quotes

Much, maybe too much, has been written about literature. (I know better than anyone; I'm an expert in the field). Yet the special thing about literature, the major art form of a Western civilization now ending before our very eyes, is not hard to define. Like literature, music can overwhelm you with sudden emotion, can move you to absolute sorrow or ecstasy; like literature, painting has the power to astonish, and to make you see the world through fresh eyes. But only literature can put you in touch with another human spirit, as a whole, with all its weaknesses and grandeurs, it limitations, its pettinesses, its obsessions, its beliefs; with whatever it finds moving, interesting, exciting, or repugnant. Only literature can grant you access to a spirit from beyond the grave-a more direct, more complete, deeper access than you'd have in conversation with a friend. Even in our deepest, most lasting friendships, we never speak so openly as when we face a blank page and address an unknown reader.

Michel Houellebecq

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Michel Houellebecq Quotes

I think if German literature could survive the '40s and Russian literature could survive Sovietism, American literature can survive Google. -Joshua Cohen

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Joshua Cohen Quotes

To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat- some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself. This isn't the case with literature. Literature stimulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.

Fernando Pessoa

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Fernando Pessoa Quotes

English is, from my point of view as an Americanist, an ethnicity. And English literature should be studied in Comparative Literature. And American literature should be a discipline, certainly growing from England and France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, and the Native traditions, particularly because those helped form the American canon. Those are our backgrounds. And then we'd be doing it the way it ought to be done. And someday I hope that it will be.

Paula Gunn Allen

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Paula Gunn Allen Quotes

Literature is the best way to overcome death. My father, as I said, is an actor. He's the happiest man on earth when he's performing, but when the show is over, he's sad and troubled. I wish he could live in the eternal present, because in the theater everything remains in memories and photographs. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to live in the present and to remain in the pantheon of the future.Literature is a way to say, I was here, this is what I thought, this is what I perceived. This is my signature, this is my name.

Ilan Stavans

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Ilan Stavans Quotes

Literature deals with morality but does not necessarily, does not, qua literature, help you to be more moral, either by precept or example. It makes you more aware. Which is to say that it makes you more human by making life more, not less, difficult. When you become more aware, the area of moral choice is widened. You can be a better man; you can also be a worse. Literature will not determine which. It is the equivalent of neither grace nor good works.

Eric Bentley

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Eric Bentley Quotes

Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us toward it, wheras literature teaches us to notice. Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life.

James Wood

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James Wood Quotes

Literature can no longer be either Mimesis or Mathesis but merely Semiosis, the adventure of what is impossible to language, in a word: Text (it is wrong to say that the notion of 'text' repeats the notion of 'literature': literature represents a finite world, the text figures the infinite of language).

Roland Barthes

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Roland Barthes Quotes

What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else. Literature is not only a mirror; it is also a map, a geography of the mind. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as our literature, as the product of who and where we have been. We need such a map desperately, we need to know about here, because here is where we live. For the members of a country or a culture, shared knowledge of their place, their here, is not a luxury but a necessity. Without that knowledge we will not survive.

Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood Quotes

To me, cinema is cinema. Cinema is one big tree with many branches. The same as literature. In literature, you don't just say, 'Oh, I bought some literature.' No, you say, 'I bought a novel' by so-and-so, or a book of essays by so-and-so.

Jonas Mekas

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Jonas Mekas Quotes

If Freud turns to literature to describe traumatic experience, it is because literature, like psychoanalysis, is interested in the complex relation between knowing and not knowing, and it is at this specific point at which knowing and not knowing intersect that the psychoanalytic theory of traumatic experience and the language of literature meet.

Cathy Caruth

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Cathy Caruth Quotes

When the critic has said everything in his power about a literary text, he has still said nothing; for the very existence of literature implies that it cannot be replaced by non-literature

Tzvetan Todorov

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Tzvetan Todorov Quotes

You can travel through literature, and you can expand your mind through literature. It's so cheap to buy that kind of ticket. -Saul Williams

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Saul Williams Quotes

In some ways, getting published in children's literature is a little more open than publishing adult literature. It's less hinged on who you might know.

Marie Rutkoski

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Marie Rutkoski Quotes

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Vaclav Havel Quotes

I think all literature should be read as comparative literature. And I think we should write out of what we know, but in the expectation that we can be changed at any moment by something we have yet to discover.

Margo Jefferson

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Margo Jefferson Quotes

Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of somebody's wishing to become, of all things, a Professor of Literature.

Gustave Flaubert

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Gustave Flaubert Quotes

Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music. -Carlos Ruiz Zafon

literature-at-least-good-literature-is-science-tempered-with-blood-art-like-architecture-music-carlos-ruiz-zafon

Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes

In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book. -Terry Pratchett

in-theory-it-was-around-now-literature-susan-hated-literature-shed-much-prefer-to-read-good-book-terry-pratchett

Terry Pratchett Quotes

I don't accept the idea that literature can be just entertainment and that there is no consequences of literature in the real world. -Mario Vargas Llosa

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Mario Vargas Llosa Quotes

if-you-read-literature-you-put-yourself-in-somebody-elses-shoes-you-learn-from-great-figures-in-literature-jim-leach

Jim Leach Quotes

I have a passion for children's literature. Young adult literature. I love it. I've always loved it. -Gretchen Rubin

i-have-passion-for-childrens-literature-young-adult-literature-i-love-it-ive-always-loved-it-gretchen-rubin

Gretchen Rubin Quotes

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Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Quotes

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Unknown Author Quotes

In French literature, you can choose a la carte; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal. -Jose Bergamin

in-french-literature-you-can-choose-la-carte-in-spanish-literature-there-is-only-set-meal-jose-bergamin

Jose Bergamin Quotes

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness. -Thomas Bulfinch

for-mythology-is-handmaid-literature-literature-is-one-best-allies-virtue-promoters-happiness-thomas-bulfinch

Thomas Bulfinch Quotes

Literature has low enough standards. But we can avoid writing the worst literature if we make ourselves ask ourselves, every two or three sentences we write, 'Is that what I really think?'

Carol Bly

literature-has-low-enough-standards-but-we-can-avoid-writing-worst-literature-if-we-make-ourselves-ask-ourselves-every-two-three-sentences-we-write-carol-bly

Carol Bly Quotes

in-science-read-by-preference-the-newest-works-in-literature-the-oldest-the-classic-literature-is-always-modern

Unknown Author Quotes

My confidence in the future of literature consists in the knowledge that there are things that only literature can give us, by means specific to it. -Italo Calvino

my-confidence-in-future-literature-consists-in-knowledge-that-there-are-things-that-only-literature-can-give-us-by-means-specific-to-it-italo-calvino

Italo Calvino Quotes

i-conclude-now-i-have-no-inner-resources-because-i-am-heavy-bored-peoples-bore-me-literature-bores-me-especially-great-literature-john-berryman

John Berryman Quotes

literature-overtakes-history-for-literature-gives-you-more-than-one-life-it-expands-experience-and-opens-new-opportunities-to-readers

Unknown Author Quotes

The writer asks himself, 'Can I think of a plot that will parallel this? Can I take this work of literature as an example of something I might produce?' Let us, then, consider literature as a productive science.

J. V. Cunningham

the-writer-asks-himself-can-i-think-plot-that-will-parallel-this-can-i-take-this-work-literature-as-example-something-i-might-produce-let-us-then-j-v-cunningham

J. V. Cunningham Quotes

I refuse to see literature as amusement, as a game. I think that you ought not to approach literature without a moral responsibility for every word you write.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

i-refuse-to-see-literature-as-amusement-as-game-i-think-that-you-ought-not-to-approach-literature-without-moral-responsibility-for-every-word-you-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

I feel like elements of race and identity and ethnicity are sort of missing in all of literature, not just in women's literature. -Cristina Henriquez

i-feel-like-elements-race-identity-ethnicity-are-sort-missing-in-all-literature-not-just-in-womens-literature

Cristina Henriquez Quotes

Literature has always been a part of my life. I studied history and literature in college. My mother is a novelist; I grew up around books. -Elliot Ackerman

literature-has-always-been-part-my-life-i-studied-history-literature-in-college-my-mother-is-novelist-i-grew-up-around-books

Elliot Ackerman Quotes

Except for two or three older writers, all modern literature seems to me not literature but some sort of handicraft, which exists only so as to be encouraged, though one is reluctant to use its products.

Anton Chekhov

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Anton Chekhov Quotes

If England has any dignity left in the way of literature, she will forget for ever the pitiful antics of English Literature's performing flea. -Sean O'Casey

if-england-has-any-dignity-left-in-way-literature-she-will-forget-for-ever-pitiful-antics-english-literatures-performing-flea-sean-ocasey

Sean O'Casey Quotes

What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons; we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless 'Why?' and 'What next?' ("Literature, Revolution, and Entropy")

Yevgeny Zamyatin

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Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes

The press is the exclusive literature of the million; to them it is literature, church, and college. -Wendell Phillips

the-press-is-exclusive-literature-million-to-them-it-is-literature-church-college-wendell-phillips

Wendell Phillips Quotes

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Jacqueline Susann Quotes

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Manuel Puig Quotes

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C.S. Lewis Quotes

We do literature a real disservice if we reduce it to knowledge or to use, to a problem to be solved. If literature solves problems, it does so by its own inexhaustibility, and by its ultimate refusal to be applied or used, even for moral good. This refusal, indeed, is literature's most moral act. At a time when meanings are manifold, disparate, and always changing, the rich possibility of interpretation-the happy resistance of the text to ever be fully known and mastered-is one of the most exhilarating products of human culture.

Marjorie Garber

we-do-literature-real-disservice-if-we-reduce-it-to-knowledge-to-use-to-problem-to-be-solved-if-literature-solves-problems-it-does-by-its-own-inexhaustibility-by-its-ultimate-ref

Marjorie Garber Quotes

We do literature a real disservice if we reduce it to knowledge or to use, to a problem to be solved. If literature solves problems, it does so by its own inexhaustibility, and by its ultimate refusal to be applied or used, even for moral good. This refusal, indeed, is literature's most moral act. At a time when meanings are manifold, disparate, and always changing, the rich possibility of interpretation--the happy resistance of the text to ever be fully known and mastered--is one of the most exhilarating products of human culture.

Marjorie Garber

we-do-literature-real-disservice-if-we-reduce-it-to-knowledge-to-use-to-problem-to-be-solved-if-literature-solves-problems-it-does-by-its-own-marjorie-garber

Marjorie Garber Quotes

Once I got into college, I discovered literature - in particular, multicultural literature. I just started to understand the power of story and narrative, and you know, like anyone else, I kind of wanted to do it, too.

Matt de la Pena

once-i-got-into-college-i-discovered-literature-in-particular-multicultural-literature-i-just-started-to-understand-power-story-narrative-you-know-like-anyone-else-i-kind-wanted-

Matt de la Pena Quotes

But literature is unique. To understand literature, you read it with your head, but you interpret it with your heart. The two are forced to work together-and, quite frankly, they often don't get along.

Camron Wright

but-literature-is-unique-to-understand-literature-you-read-it-with-your-head-but-you-interpret-it-with-your-heart-the-two-are-forced-to-work-together-quite-frankly-they-often-don

Camron Wright Quotes

I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

Francis Ford Coppola

i-had-older-brother-who-was-interested-in-literature-i-had-early-exposure-to-literature-theater-my-father-sometimes-would-work-in-musical-francis-ford-coppola

Francis Ford Coppola Quotes

As society diversifies, the number of people who read literature is decreasing. It will be difficult for readers to digest my ideas through literature.

Cao Yu

as-society-diversifies-number-people-who-read-literature-is-decreasing-it-will-be-difficult-for-readers-to-digest-my-ideas-through-literature

Cao Yu Quotes

Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.

John Cheever

literature-has-been-salvation-damned-literature-has-inspired-guided-lovers-routed-despair-can-perhaps-in-this-case-save-world-john-cheever

John Cheever Quotes

The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer.

Oscar Wilde

the-best-work-in-literature-is-always-done-by-those-who-do-not-depend-on-it-for-their-daily-bread-highest-form-literature-poetry-brings-no-wealth-oscar-wilde

Oscar Wilde Quotes

For this reason, to study English literature without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete.

Lafcadio Hearn

for-this-reason-to-study-english-literature-without-some-general-knowledge-relation-bible-to-that-literature-would-be-to-leave-ones-literary-lafcadio-hearn

Lafcadio Hearn Quotes

Scholarship cannot do without literature.... It needs literature to float it, to set it current, to authenticate it to all the race, to get it out of closets and into the brains of men who stir abroad.

Woodrow Wilson

scholarship-cannot-do-without-literature-it-needs-literature-to-float-it-to-set-it-current-to-authenticate-it-to-all-race-to-get-it-out-closets-woodrow-wilson

Woodrow Wilson Quotes

Real literature is something much better than a harmless instrument for getting through idle hours. The purpose of great literature is to help us to develop into full human beings.

Russell Kirk

real-literature-is-something-much-better-than-harmless-instrument-for-getting-through-idle-hours-the-purpose-great-literature-is-to-help-us-to-develop-into-full-human-beings-russ

Russell Kirk Quotes

All literature, all philosophical treatises, all the voices of antiquity are full of examples for imitation, which would all lie unseen in darkness without the light of literature..

Marcus Tullius Cicero

all-literature-all-philosophical-treatises-all-voices-antiquity-are-full-examples-for-imitation-which-would-all-lie-unseen-in-darkness-without-marcus-tullius-cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

We write from life and call it literature, and literature lives because we are in it. -F. Sionil Jose

we-write-from-life-call-it-literature-literature-lives-because-we-are-in-it-f-sionil-jose

F. Sionil Jose Quotes

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Gertrude Stein Quotes

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Vanna Bonta Quotes

The fantastic in literature doesn't exist as a challenge to what is probable, but only there where it can be increased to a challenge of reason itself: the fantastic in literature consists, when all has been said, essentially in showing the world as opaque, as inaccessible to reason on principle. This happens when Piranesi in his imagined prisons depicts a world peopled by other beings than those for which it was created. ("On the Fantastic in Literature")

Lars Gustafsson

the-fantastic-in-literature-doesnt-exist-as-challenge-to-what-is-probable-but-only-there-where-it-can-be-increased-to-challenge-reason-itself-fantastic-in-literature-consists-whe

Lars Gustafsson Quotes

I look at western literature and especially North American literature, and I feel like it gets bogged down so much with all of that, with domestic stories and relationships and a woman dealing with the loss of her husband.

Miguel Syjuco

i-look-at-western-literature-especially-north-american-literature-i-feel-like-it-gets-bogged-down-much-with-all-that-with-domestic-stories-relationships-woman-dealing-with-loss-h

Miguel Syjuco Quotes

The first forms of writing emerged not for art, literature, or love, not for spiritual or liturgical purposes, but for business--all literature could be said to originate from sales receipts (sorry).

Daniel Levitin

the-first-forms-writing-emerged-not-for-art-literature-love-not-for-spiritual-liturgical-purposes-but-for-businessall-literature-could-be-said-to-daniel-levitin

Daniel Levitin Quotes

The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive.

Lionel Trilling

the-function-literature-through-all-its-mutations-has-been-to-make-us-aware-particularity-selves-high-authority-self-in-its-quarrel-with-its-society-its-culture-literature-is-in-

Lionel Trilling Quotes

It's an absurd error to put modern English literature in the curriculum. You should read contemporary literature for pleasure or not at all. You shouldn't be taught to monkey with it.

Rebecca West

its-absurd-error-to-put-modern-english-literature-in-curriculum-you-should-read-contemporary-literature-for-pleasure-not-at-all-you-shouldnt-be-rebecca-west

Rebecca West Quotes

In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.

Mario Vargas Llosa

in-my-case-literature-is-kind-revenge-its-something-that-gives-me-what-real-life-cant-give-me-all-adventures-all-suffering-all-experiences-i-can-mario-vargas-llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa Quotes

Literature professes to be important while at the same time considering itself an object of doubt. It confirms itself as it disparages itself. It seeks itself: this is more than it has a right to do, because literature may be one of those things which deserve to be found but not to be sought.

Maurice Blanchot

literature-professes-to-be-important-while-at-same-time-considering-itself-object-doubt-it-confirms-itself-as-it-disparages-itself-it-seeks-itself-maurice-blanchot

Maurice Blanchot Quotes

To a true-blue professor of literature in an American university, literature is not something that a plain human being, living today, painfully sits down to produce. No; it is something dead.

Sinclair Lewis

to-trueblue-professor-literature-in-american-university-literature-is-not-something-that-plain-human-being-living-today-painfully-sits-down-to-sinclair-lewis

Sinclair Lewis Quotes

Well, you sort of get out of the pool room, you get out of the Marine Corps, you get out and read some literature, you become involved with people who also want to know and are ready to share some ideas about literature and thoughts, and it becomes nourished that way.

Harvey Keitel

well-you-sort-get-out-pool-room-you-get-out-marine-corps-you-get-out-read-some-literature-you-become-involved-with-people-who-also-want-to-know-harvey-keitel

Harvey Keitel Quotes

All great popular literature today one day will be seen as great literature and will no longer be seen as popular literature. -Walter Mosley

all-great-popular-literature-today-one-day-will-be-seen-as-great-literature-will-no-longer-be-seen-as-popular-literature-walter-mosley

Walter Mosley Quotes

It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.

John Steinbeck

it-is-customary-for-recipient-this-award-to-offer-personal-scholarly-comment-on-nature-direction-literature-at-this-particular-time-however-i-john-steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes

Younger than Morini and Pelletier, Espinoza studied Spanish literature, not German literature, at least for the first two years of his university career, among other sad reasons because he dreamed of being a writer.

Roberto Bolae±o

younger-than-morini-pelletier-espinoza-studied-spanish-literature-not-german-literature-at-least-for-first-two-years-his-university-career-among-other-sad-reasons-because-he-drea

Roberto Bolae±o Quotes

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

the-essence-literature-is-war-between-emotion-intellect-between-life-death-when-literature-becomes-too-intellectual-when-it-begins-to-ignore-isaac-bashevis-singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

to-bring-anything-really-to-life-in-literature-we-cant-be-lifelike-we-have-to-be-literaturelike-northrop-frye

Northrop Frye Quotes

we cannot imagine literature without nostalgia. It is the motherboard of literature. -Dr. Pritam I. Thakur

we-cannot-imagine-literature-without-nostalgia-it-is-motherboard-literature-dr-pritam-i-thakur

Dr. Pritam I. Thakur Quotes

I think so much of young adult literature sort of gets ghettoized - the title 'young adult' makes people immediately discount it. And just like with books that get written for adults, there is plenty of young adult literature that is bad. But there is also plenty of young adult literature that is brilliant.

Alexi Zentner

i-think-much-young-adult-literature-sort-gets-ghettoized-title-young-adult-makes-people-immediately-discount-it-and-just-like-with-books-that-get-written-for-adults-there-is-plen

Alexi Zentner Quotes

Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain""the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed""then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood.

Vladimir Nabokov

literature-real-literature-must-not-be-gulped-down-like-some-potion-which-may-be-good-for-heart-good-for-brain-brain-that-stomach-soul-literature-vladimir-nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain - the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed - then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood.

Vladimir Nabokov

literature-real-literature-must-not-be-gulped-down-like-some-potion-which-may-be-good-for-heart-good-for-brain-brain-that-stomach-soul-literature-must-be-taken-broken-to-bits-pul

Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror.

Ismail Kadare

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Ismail Kadare Quotes

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