Quotes About Literature

That's the curse of the reading class. We can be seduced by a good story even at the most inopportune moments.

Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good.

People know that I am a very good author. But they would rather read what I have to say about the next election.

I mistrust the term graphic novel because it sounds like a good thing to put on a tee-shirt. That's why the French like them.

That's a very good way to learn the craft of writing - from reading.

Next to eating good dinners, a healthy man with a benevolent turn of mind, must like, I think, to read about them.

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

It's not in good taste to have talking ghosts in a grown-up novel.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.

Many existing top 20 Scottish writers have flourished in part because of good turns done by institutions, arts community, libraries and bookshops.

Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them.

A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country

There can be no freedom in art and literature where the government determines who shall create them.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books - and I wouldn't put it past them - I'm in dead trouble.

Read. Read all the time. Read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life." (Wellesly High School commencement speech, "You Are Not Special", 6-12)

The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other well.

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.

I doubt if anything learnt at school is of more value than great literature learnt by heart.

All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

You hear all this whining going on, "Where are our great writers?" The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?

But I was, and still am, an avid reader and so when I first started I chose to photograph many of the great writers in this country to try and earn a living.

Great literature transcends its native land, but none that I know of ignores its soil.