Quotes About Literature

There is no living African writer who has not had to, or will not have to, contend with Achebe's work. We are either resisting him - stylistically, politically, or culturally - or we are writing toward him.

I think women do write politically all the time. Margaret Atwood does; Doris Lessing does.

In Mexico, I think I'm considered conservative. Not politically - in terms of form and experimentation.

To feel that literature has any politically redemptive power at all just seems increasingly naive.

I have been a politically conscious citizen. I've been an artist, a reader, and have been chiselled by that.

If it were not for the fact that editors have become so timorous in these politically correct times, I would probably have a greater readership than I have.

Shakespeare would never have gone far in today's politically correct world.

The exciting quality about Joyce is that when you read him, you are not told of the large public issues that were agitating the minds of politicians and journalists on those days. Joyce is interested in the mind of a man who has put five shillings on a horse.

I love massive books: books so big, like bricks, you could drown yourself in a pool with them if you're not careful.

No matter what is happening in life or in the world - war, natural disaster, poor health, pain, the death of loved ones - if existence is filled with art, music and literature, life will be fulfilling, a joy.

It was easier to do Shakespeare than a lot of modern movie scripts that are so poorly written.

I didn't know anything about Opus Die except from pop culture, like Dan Brown novels, which I knew wasn't really knowing anything about Opus Die.

When I was writing the first few books, what I would do is write a bunch of sentences and then go back and expand and explode those sentences, pack as much into them as I could, so they'd kind of be like popcorn kernels popping... all this stuff in there to make the writing dense, and beautiful for its density.

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.

Gossip is more popular than literature.

In America, the only truly popular art form is the movies. Most people consider painting a hobby and literature, schoolwork.

The world of scholarship is much more measured in its appreciation and also its criticism than the world of popular literature.

I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.

Contemporary fiction is the hardest for me because I am not really in the popular culture - I don't watch TV.

I'm a big believer that sci-fi lives in literature, that the true sci-fi population is out there reading a gazillion authors.

I have always loved reading, so was interested in the literary world, and took many literary portraits.

People think that because I write about India I must be trying to portray India in a way.

I love stories. But I don't distinguish so much between a short story and a novel. Personally, when I sit down to read a novel or a Chekhov story, I'm seeking the same thing: I'm seeking that same rich portrayal of life in words.

I have no illusions that my work can rouse the masses to create change, because literature simply doesn't have that power anymore in my country, if it does anywhere. But I do hope that it can be read by those who are in positions to create change, or that it can at least be part of that dialogue.