Quotes About Literature

Literature is that which he can not read without pain, without choking on truth.

The pleasure of the text is that moment when my body pursues its own ideas—for my body does not have the same ideas as I do.

The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.

Literature is like phosphorus: it shines with its maximum brilliance and the moment when it attempts to die.

It must always be considered as though spoken by a character in a novel

Mais à nous, qui ne sommes ni des chevaliers de la foi ni des surhommes, il ne reste, si je puis dire, qu'à tricher avec la langue, qu'à tricher la langue. Cette tricherie salutaire, cette esquive, ce leurre magnifique, qui permet d'entendre la langue hors-pouvoir, dans la splendeur d'une révolution permanente du langage, je l'appelle pour ma part : littérature.

This, which is true of the literary modes of writing, in which the unity of the signs is ceaselessly fascinated by zones of infra- or ultra-language, is even truer of the political ones, in which the alibi stem­ming from language is at the same time intimidation and glorification : for it is power or conflict which produce the purest types of writing.

La sanción del crítico no es el sentido de la obra, sino el sentido de lo que dice sobre ella.

And yet, nothing can escape being put into question by History; not even good writing.

Literature is like phosphorus: it shines with its maximum brilliance at the moment when it attempts to die. — Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero . (Hill and Wang; Reissue edition April 1, 1977) Originally published 1953

The literary story is a story that deals with the complicated human heart with an honest tolerance for the ambiguity in which we live.

The prolific Hamilton was now writing pseudonymous commentaries on his own pseudonymous essays.

He dabbled in watercolors, attended the theater, and quoted liberally from Shakespeare and Dickens.

Since Hamilton's abiding literary sin was prolixity, the time and length constraints imposed by The Federalist may have given a salutary concision to his writing.

Burr is said to have remarked, "Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.

While reading the scene in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy in which the tenderhearted Uncle Toby picks up a fly and delicately places it outside a window instead of killing it, Burr is said to have remarked, "Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.

Earlier generations of biographers had to rely on only a meager portion of his voluminous output.

children will be able to tell than the story we have told? Surely that is the greatest contribution of science to civilization: to ensure that the greatest books are not those of the past, but of the future.

Books by Lee Child Title Page Copyright Dedication Introduction

Better than Tennyson,' Reacher said. 'You have to give me that.

Books Can Fuel Your Dreams!

Literary art's sudden, startling truth and beauty make us feel, in the most solitary part of us, that we are not alone, and that there are meanings that cannot be bought, sold or traded, that do not decay and die. This socially and economically worthless experience is called transcendence, and you cannot assign a paper, or a grade, or an academic rank, on that. Literature is too sacred to be taught. It needs only to be read.

Kirjailija ei tosin minun mielestäni ole taikuri joka hokkus-pokkuskeinoilla tarjoaa hetken paon ankeasta arjesta, vaan pikemminkin hän on hovimestari joka järjestää lukijalleen tapaamisen todellisuuden kanssa. Mutta katsas on rakennettava mielikuvitusta ja sisäisiä näkyjä noudattaen.

See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell; The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy; Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy; Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt; Dakota by Kathleen Norris; and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.