Quotes About Literature

It's really rather easy to write eighth-century Chinese poetry, said Angus Lordie. In English, of course. It requires little effort, I find.

She had a great respect for books herself, and she wished that she had read more. One could never read enough. Never.

I thought the definition of an educated person was one who at least knows what's in the great books he or she hasn't read" (p. 169).

Although she was not a great reader, Mma Potokwane was a firm believer in the power of the book. The more books that Botswana had, in her view, the better. It would be on books that the future would be based; books and the people who knew how to use them.

Why? Why is there a crisis in literature? Because of lies and rottenness. Simplicity and sincerity have been replaced by obsfucation and pretense. Men, of course. They love to create mystery where none exists. It's the way they think.

But who doesn't have a lot of unread books? It's nice, though, to know they are there.

But who doesn't have a lot of unread books? It's nice, though, just to know that they're there.

We all have Proustian moments, but don't really know about it until we read Proust.

One could never read enough. Never.

There may be no book on the mothers of poets, or artists in general, but it might one day be written and would be, I think, an enlightening read.

And yet, she suddenly wondered, should you actually lie about how much Proust you've read?

Two mountains in Greece, you see: Virgil refers to piling Pelion upon Ossa as a metaphor for adding one very large thing to another—going too far, in other words.

We still, alas, cannot forestall it- This dreadful ailment's heavy toll; The spleen is what the English call it, We call it simply, Russian soul.

Days when I came to flower serenely in Lycée gardens long ago, and read my Apuleius keenly, but spared no glance for Cicero.

Whoever you be, O my reader- friend, foe- I wish with you to part at present as a pal. Farewell. Whatever you in my wake sought in these careless strophes- tumultuous recollections, relief from labors, live pictures or bons mots, or faults of grammar- God grant that you, in this book, for recreation, for the daydream, for the heart, for jousts in journals, may find at least a crumb. Upon which, let us part, farewell!

The History of the Village of Goryukhino

Will I have to use a dictionary to read your book? asked Mrs. Dodypol. It depends, says I, how much you used the dictionary before you read it.

If on a friend's bookshelf You cannot find Joyce or Sterne Cervantes, Rabelais, or Burton, You are in danger, face the fact, So kick him first or punch him hard And from him hide behind a curtain.

I did not say alas! (nobody ever does that I know of, though the word is so frequently written).

Paul Theroux, she adores his long, grumpy travelogues, his trips around Africa especially.

I possessed nearly five thousand volumes in my library at Rome; but after reading them over many times, I found out that with a hundred and fifty well-chosen books a man possesses a complete analysis of all human knowledge, or at least all that is either useful or desirable to be acquainted with. – Abbe Faria

There are some catastrophes that a poor writer's pen cannot describe and which he is obliged to leave to the imagination of his readers with a bald statement of the facts.

Frederick Ward thought novels immoral and had been known to leave the room rather than subject himself to "bohemian" opinions.

Guilt, of course, is the predominant theme of Hitchcock's films. It derives not only from the complexities of his own inner life: guilt is also one of the great themes in all art, and especially in contemporary art and literature.