Quotes About Literature

Canlit might not exert the fascination of - say - a venereal wart.

That is how we writers all started: by reading. We heard the voice of a book speaking to us.

What really annoys me are the ones who write to say, I am doing your book for my final examinations and could you please tell me what the meaning of it is. I find it just so staggering--that you're supposed to explain the meaning of your book to some total stranger! If I knew what the meanings of my books were, I wouldn't have bothered to write them.

I need words and print... I need print like an addict. I could live without it, perhaps. But I hope I never have to try.

There would be more genuine rejoicing at the discovery of a complete new novel by Jane Austen than any other literary discovery, short of a new major play by Shakespeare.

There are some writers who wrote too much. There are others who wrote enough. There are yet others who wrote nothing like enough to satisfy their admirers, and Jane Austen is certainly one of these.

The e-reader certainly sorts out the sheep from the goats, and divides those who need to read from those who like to turn the pages.

on John Cowper Powys]...there is an indistinct photograph of the great man himself, gazing into the misty cleft of a mountain range, wearing what could be an old rug, or an old cardigan. He looks like a cross between an aged werewolf and a puzzled child.

It has always been my custom to treat words with respect. I can recall the time...when I knew words would be my life's work

Why will people persist in reading strange meanings into the simplest of story? Is it not enough that a writer can entertain for a few hours with narrative without being suspected of 'significances' or symbolism or 'social trends'?

He looked on people, and he neither liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither heartened nor saddened. He accepted the universe and his place in it for what they were and, shrugging, turned to his music and books and his better world.

Mitchell rose to the task of playing the avenging angel for the Confederate States. There have been hundreds of novels about the Civil War, but Gone With the Wind stands like an obelisk in the

With the introduction of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, Miss Mitchell managed to create the two most famous lovers in the English-speaking world since Romeo and Juliet. Scarlett springs alive in the first sentence of the book and holds the narrative center for over a thousand pages. She is a fabulous, pixilated, one-of-a-kind creation, and she does not utter a dull line in the entire book.

The Muslim religion is so unreformed since it was created that nowhere in the Muslim world has there been any real advance in science, or art or literature, or technology in the last 500 years.

I would like to see the technology used to explore more period horror genre works, for example, E. A. Poe.

Because so many people use goodreads, it is an amazingly good—and amazingly underutilized—resource for understanding what people read, why, and how they feel about their reading experiences.

I've always been interested in gadgets and technology and I've always been a reader.

I am a big defender of 'Harry Potter, ' and I think any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish, we should be thankful for them.

If you sell the film rights to your book, it doesn't mean there will be a film. I have sold the rights to five books and had zero films made. Take the money and be thankful.

I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.

The printed page transcends space and time. The printed page, the infinity of the book, must be transcended.

I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.

Time is never wasted if you remember to bring along something to read.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.