Quotes About Literature

I wanted to be like Jo March in 'Little Women.' I wanted to be married to a man who would give me lots of sons.

I tend not to think about audience when I'm writing. Many people who read 'The Giver' now have their own kids who are reading it. Even from the beginning, the book attracted an audience beyond a child audience.

I've read a lot of classic literature from assorted cultures, and always glad to read more when one comes across my path - but why be embarrassed by the fact that flesh and blood has limits? Nobody's read everything.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

I love to go home and do the chores and read.

We had five goats, two dogs, a cat and racks of commentaries on Shakespeare.

When I was a child, I loved 'The Marble Faun' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The reason I liked it was because it had a beautiful binding. When you're a kid, you like books because they're pretty to look at, and this one had a white calfskin cover and gold edges. That was enough to make me love it.

I can tell you that when Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, our writer, when she would work on some of these grander novels like, say, a book like 'The Golden Bowl', that would take her months and I wouldn't know what she was doing, really.

My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

An actor must read a lot. Books not only make one a good actor but also a better human being.

A good book is a good book. End of story.

Read Don Quixote; it is a very good book; I still read it frequently.

A good book written for children can be read by adults.

Always, always, always pass a good book along on to somebody else.

You know you're going to have a good day when your morning begins with breakfast in the same room as Carrie Tiffany, David Vann and Lionel Shriver.

I always wanted to write novels, even before I had read a lot of novels or had a very good idea of what they were.

The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'

When you read books, you kind of create that whole world in your mind, and you go on a journey with the author of that book. I think that's really a good thing.

I read Herman Hesse's 'Siddhartha' while I was writing 'Lord of Light' along with many other things. It seemed a good time to read it so I could see what he had to say about Buddha. In my first chapter, I was thinking in terms of the big battle scene in the 'Mahabarata.' It helped me in visualizing the battle in my novel.

I think that the world is very complex. I think that the movie is a good way to ask questions. To give answers, you would write a lot of books.

literature will lose, sunlight will win, don't worry.

From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady on the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.

Mr. Johnson had just been reading the Lady of the Lake, and at once suggested that my name be Douglass. From that time until now I have been called Frederick Douglass;

The reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of language, and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts, which had frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of utterance.