Quotes About Literature

A bit of ideology and being up to date is most apropos," Chekhov said—tongue in cheek, I suspect. In a more serious vein, he wrote that writers "should engage in politics only enough to protect themselves from politics.

I'm sure I've got that part of the Aristophanic sex-myth straight. With the help of Eros we go on, each of us, looking for his missing half. Ravelstein was in real earnest about this quest, driven by longing. Not everyone feels that longing, or acknowledges it if he does feel it. In literature Antony and Cleopatra had it, Romeo and Juliet had it. Closer to our own time Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary had it, Stendhal's Madame de Rênal in her simplicity and innocence had

Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?

Real life is physical. Give me books instead. Give me the invisibility of the contents of books, the thoughts, the ideas, the images. Let me become part of a book. . . . an intertextual being: a book cyborg, or, considering that books aren't cybernetic, perhaps a bibliorg.

Oftentimes I say to myself, "Thou alone art wretched: all other mortals are happy, none are distressed like thee!" Then I read a passage in an ancient poet, and I seem to understand my own heart. I have so much to endure! Have men before me ever been so wretched?

AUTHOR: Who writes anything good these days, Or reads with moderate intelligence! And what the dear young folk all praise, [4090] I've never seen such stupid nonsense.

The most dangerous of all books, so far as the history of the world is concerned, is indubitably the Bible, because no other book has brought so much good and so much evil to the human race.

Classisch ist das Gesunde, romantisch das Kranke.

Wer das Dichten will verstehen, muß ins Land der Dichtung gehen; wer den Dichter will verstehen, muß in Dichters Lande gehen.

Thus, book after book, the book of all books would that it was given to us so that we might try to enter there as into a second world, where we lose ourselves, enlighten ourselves, perfect ourselves.

para mí los goces del espíritu consisten en un libro, en un hoja, en una página; sólo los libros pueden hacernos soportable y hasta deliciosa una larga noche de invierno, y hacernos llevar una dichosa vida que reanime todos nuestros miembros.

Il libro era uno di quelli che tengono avvinto un animo delicato e non lo lasciano più andare.

Era immersa nel suo libro e in se stessa, tanto amabile da vedersi che gli alberi, i cespugli tutt'attorno avrebbero dovuto essere animati e dotati di occhi per ammirarla e goderne.

In many points, both literary and moral, I could have wished devoutly that he had not written as he has done;

Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte. (More recent poets put a lot of water in the ink.) -- Goethe: Aus Makariens Archiv. Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. III 18

She found the page, cleared her throat and began to read, " 'There was nary a doubt that I had ever seen such big ones, round and ripe. My teeth ached to bite them' " God, what tripe!

The grounding in natural sciences which I obtained in the course of my medical studies, including preliminary examinations in botany, zoology, physics, and chemistry, was to become decisive in determining the trend of my literary work.

A religion is not contained in a single book; there's something religious in almost any book.

I read my eyes out and can't read half enough.... The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.

Amidst your Ardor for Greek and Latin I hope you will not forget your mother Tongue. Read Somewhat in the English Poets every day. . . . You will never be alone, with a Poet in your Poket. You will never have an idle Hour.

To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor

To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor's prohibited list.

No possession can surpass, or even equal a good library, to the lover of books. Here are treasured up for his daily use and delectation, riches which increase by being consumed, and pleasures that never cloy.

You've not revised ... at all?" "Esther ... Surely this shouldn't be a problem. English lit is a no-mark's degree with no vocational value. Just wave your hands around a lot and 'interpret'!