Quotes About Literature

A writer could spend years reading already-published books just to gain a grasp of the historical terrain.

There are still some terrible cliches in the presentation of Indian fiction. The lotus flower. The hennaed hands. In mainland Europe, people still slap these images on my books and I go bananas.

Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel.

I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult.

If you look through the shelves of science books, you'll find row after row of books written by men. This can be terribly off-putting for women.

I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read 'War and Peace.' The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading 'War and Peace' - it's like you're in a comedy sketch and you think you're smart.

I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliff-hangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading.

I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do.

I had never read Upton Sinclair. I didn't read 'The Jungle' in high school or anything like that. But it's pretty terrific writing.

I like terrific writing, but I also like a terrific story. My favorite books have both, and they're by contemporary, commercial American writers.

People forget that writers start off being readers. We all love it when we find a terrific read, and we want to let people know about it.

Even including myself, my favorite author is Eileen Spinelli, who I happen to live with. She's a terrific writer and has written several of my all-time favorites.

For every Steven King, there are a dozen guys like me who make a good living. For every David Brin, there are a dozen authors who have managed to make it their day job. For each of them, there are a dozen more for whom writing is a terrific supplement.

I remember when I was about 12, I read M. R. James' 'Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary' under the covers, way too young to fully understand what was going on with those stories - completely terrified but absolutely loved them.

I want to talk about my very first play, when I was in eighth grade. One day, my English teacher, Mrs. Baker, announced that we were going to read 'On Borrowed Time' out loud in class. I was a mediocre student; I was terrified that she was going to call on me, so I hid my head.

Believe it or not, my introduction to scary literature was 'Pinocchio.' My mother read it to me every day before naptime when I was three or four. The original 'Pinocchio' is terrifying.

Companies that are terrifying to a writer are companies like Amazon.

I don't care to read about Garrison Keillor. We cover the same sort of territory, and I don't need to know anything more about him.

In the 20th century, imprisonment of writers practically comes with the territory.

Beginning in the 11th century, a less-fragmented Europe began to take shape, and what we now call medieval culture - in which literature and learning made a noticeable rebound - spread through much of the territory Rome had once dominated.

Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.

To provoke dreams of terror in the slumber of prosperity has become the moral duty of literature.

Reading is becoming a kind of specialist activity, and that strikes terror into the heart of people who love reading.

Once, Azamgarh was known in the field of education and literature, but the Samajwadi Party turned it into a stronghold of terrorism.