Quotes About Literature

Now I wonder what it could be you are reading there, Mr Stevens.' 'Simply a book, Miss Kenton.' 'I can see that, Mr Stevens. But what sort of book -- that is what interests me.

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki The Overstory by Richard Powers The Farm by Joanne Ramos The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

It's hard to put the whole world to rights, but let us at least think about how we can prepare our own small corner of it, this corner of 'literature', where we read, write, publish, recommend, denounce and give awards to books. If we are to play an important role in this uncertain future, if we are to get the best from the writers of today and tomorrow, I believe we must become more diverse. I mean this in two particular senses.

Firstly, we must widen our common literary world to include many more voices from beyond our comfort zones of the elite first-world cultures.

Take this. It's one of my gothics. The seventies were, sadly, not the time to include sex scenes of any satisfying nature. When the lights go out, you can imagine the hero and heroine are lying in bed, fully clothed, making shadow puppets on the wall.

There'll be times when the only refuge is books. Then you'll read as if you meant it, as if your life depended on it.

The Local Paper here asked that me books be banned........THE HIGHEST PRAISE for an Irish writer.

I get through some print.

I've always been a reader; no matter what else I've lost, I hung on to that.

the enlightenment of mankind." Books, and the wisdom

Students were expected to learn hundreds of lines from the Greek and Roman classics, then, later, from poetry in their native tongues. This tradition has faded from our lives, and something powerful has been lost.

To know some Shakespeare gives you a head start in life.

The fundamental message is self-righteous, and it takes this form: 'T. S. Eliot is a homophobe and I am not. Therefore, I am a better person than Eliot.' To which the proper response is: 'But T. S. Eliot could really write, and you can't.

How did he do it? First of all, with the help of an outstanding teacher and librarian named Alcuin of York, he collected books and had them copied. People don't always realise that only three or four antique manuscripts of the Latin authors are still in existence: our whole knowledge of ancient literature is due to the collecting and copying that began under Charlemagne, and almost any classical text that survived until the eighth century has survived till today.

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them.

A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole, and a carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for the reader, the object of the writer's enthusiasm.

I believe that the power of literature is stronger than the power of tyranny.

Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft.

(The short story) is a form that has all the power of the novel - some would say more - but none of the self-importance.

It's interesting to note that all revolutionary literature was written by pastors. These guys were involved in a revolution against the mightiest power that the world had ever seen.

The power of fictitious writing, for good as well as evil is a thing which ought most seriously to be reflected on. No one can fail to see that in our day it is becoming a very great agency.

States of soul rightly expressed, as the poet expresses them in moments of pure inspiration, retain forever the power of creating like states. It is this that makes genuine literature a vital force.

I've always been inspired by Don Quixote as a role model of sorts, of the power of books to sort of make you insane in maybe a beautiful way.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (whose mother died ten days after she was born) wrote a novel that anticipates Semmelweis's discovery and serves as a parable for the destructive power of decaying matter.