Quotes About Literature

If you want to study writing, read Dickens. That's how to study writing, or Faulkner, or D.H. Lawrence, or John Keats. They can teach you everything you need to know about writing.

I mean, first, almost all writers these days teach because they don't make enough money publishing to live on, to support themselves - people like Tobias Wolff, Anne Beattie, Amy Hempel, Stuart Dybek; a lot of short story writers, for one thing.

I taught principally German language and literature at Eton. But any master with private pupils must be prepared to teach anything they ask for. That can be as diverse as the early paintings of Salvador Dali or how bumblebees manage to fly.

I teach writing courses and first of all, I teach my students what prosody is.

There are courses you can take to learn the mechanics of the business, like the Radcliffe course, but I don't think they teach you how to edit.

I taught high school English for 24 years. I always teach my students to appreciate the beauty of language and to write poetically.

I obtained a job at the Library of Congress. I loved books, so I felt at home. I was going to end up, I thought, majoring in English and teach at the college level.

We're not in love with Literature all the time - especially when you have to teach it every day.

I can remember exactly where I sat when my teacher first read Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach'.

I can't imagine my life without books. My father was an electrical engineer, and my mother was a public school teacher. Books were an integral part of my childhood.

I had been a college teacher. I had taught Greek mythology.

I didn't really like reading much before I did 'The Golden Compass'. But then my teacher told me to read it. And I thought, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to read a whole book by myself!' It's not that I couldn't read, it's just that I didn't really like books very much. But the book that she lent me I really enjoyed.

I read 'the Hobbit' at the age when you're supposed to read it. I didn't read 'The Lord Of The Rings.' My father, who was an English teacher, advised me that once I had read 'the Hobbit,' that would be enough. I could then move on to Dostoyevsky.

I didn't want to be the archetypal sponging brother-in-law, so I didn't go into acting when I got to the States. I thought, 'No, I'll go to school and then I'll be an English teacher; that'll be fun.' But I was horrible as a teacher. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't inspire those kids to take an interest in Milton and Shakespeare and Donne.

I'm crazy about Shakespeare, who was a notorious word inventor. And my wife is an English teacher, and she's hilarious.

As a teacher, I've never seen anything like 'Harry Potter.' That's why I smart when people talk about the 'next' 'Harry Potter.' There is no 'next' 'Harry Potter.'

All the women in my life have been librarians, English teachers and book sellers.

I was always drawn to teachers who made class interesting. In high school, I enjoyed my American and English literature classes because my teachers, Jeanne Dorsey and Dani Barton, created an environment where interaction was important.

Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.

Writing was something I have always been interested in. I've grown up in a household full of books, with both my parents English teachers and very booky.

My husband's parents were both English teachers for decades.

Good teachers can make great authors accessible to new generations anywhere.

My English teachers gave me a copy of Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' when I left high school, which has always been very special to me - it was the novel that introduced me to dystopian fiction. I'm also influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Dickens, John Wyndham and Middle English dream-visions.

I had the most incredible English and literature teachers in school, and it really influenced my love of storytelling. It's what made me excited to study journalism in college. I love editorials and documentaries. All of that came from being given the opportunity to lose myself in good writing when I was a kid.