Quotes About Literature

Literature is the product of a deep-seated need for honesty. Hence, those who lie most are struck most deeply by it, and those who are honest have no need for it.

I get a warm feeling among my books.

I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity. Books are unconvertible assets, to be passed on only to those who possess them already.

The latter's boast that he had never read a book for pleasure in his life did not predispose me in his favour.

Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.

It doesn't do to read too much,' Widmerpool said. 'You get to look at life with a false perspective. By all means have some familiarity with the standard authors. I should never raise any objection to that. But it is no good clogging your mind with a lot of trash from modern novels.

we may say that reading Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, and Tolstoy enriches our understanding of reality, and therefore enlarges our capacity to enjoy life and enhances our adaptation to it. Shakespeare, Keats, and the other great poets reveal the inner nature of the world and sharpen our sensibilities because their perceptions and their gift for metaphor make it possible for us to transcend our own limited vision by sharing theirs.

The tenth Muse who now governs the periodical press.

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little -- or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.

To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.

This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.

Bøkene er alltid tilgjengelige følgesvenner. Alderdom, ensomhet, lediggang, kjedsomhet, smerte og uro: Det finnes ikke den hverdagslige plage som bøkene ikke kan lindre, såfremt plagene ikke er for sterke. Bøkene mildner bekymringene og tilbyr trøst og støtte.

Leemos porque, aunque leer no sea indispensable para vivir, la vida es más agradable, más clara, más rica para aquellos que leen que para aquellos que no lo hacen. En un sentido más simple todavía: vivir es más fácil para aquellos que saben leer, no solamente las noticias, las instrucciones de uso, las ordenanzas, los periódicos y las papeletas de voto, sino también los textos literarios.

Tante pagine sublimi sono state date alle fiamme, mentre questi documenti schifosi stanno ancora qui nella mia biblioteca.

Si des critiques avaient survécu, sans doute auraient-ils reproché à l'auteur quelque chose comme un pessimisme trop caricatural et un manque de foi dans les capacités de l'humanité à se régénérer après le malheur, mais, par chance pour la réception de la pièce, les journalistes et les juges littéraires avaient, comme toute le monde ou presque, été réduits en mottes charbonneuses (Black Village, page 74)

D'autre part la langue écrite, la langue littéraire, surchargée, pompeuse, pâteuse, prétentieuse, gorgée de digressions ineptes, absconse, évasive, allusive, ne réussissait qu'à lui transmettre un vilain bruit et de vilaines évidences très mal formulées (Black Village p. 123)

Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

Despite your best efforts, you could not invent a better police force for literature than criticism and the authors own conscience.

There are people whom even childrens literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon.

I try to catch every sentence, every word you and I say, and quickly lock all these sentences and words away in my literary storehouse because they might come in handy.

It is a fact that, being a quick reader, apart from enabling a person to study good books such as Macaulay and Gibbon, enables a person to read a lot of bad books as well.