Quotes About Literature

If the future, as imagined in literature, is really the present taken to extremes, then the past is also the present, but boiled down.

People who read fiction are different from other people because they are people who are interested in an imagined world.

I think 'Dark Blue' came to me while I was doing a project in London. I read it, and the character immediately popped out at me.

There's a lot of material from my life in my books, but they're not really autobiographical, in the sense that they're not about my life. So, in 'A Feather on the Breath of God' I write about my parents, I write about this Russian immigrant, I write about the world of dance, but it isn't an autobiography; so much is left out.

I knew I had to write about Canada. I just could not find in literature any examples of the immigrant experience that I've had.

It's what all writers dream of, that our work finds a measure of immortality that long outlives the words of any critic.

I believe one can gauge a book's impact only after about 10 years.

The canon is dominated by books written by men, about men, and for men - the male voice is therefore not a particularly difficult one to impersonate.

I often find that writers who disavow the importance of an ending are just not very good at endings.

There is grand romance in The Lord of the Rings. It's an important part of epic literature.

Having a facility for language is an important part of being an author.

Books have always been an important part of my life.

I find it's impossible for me to read Proust.

I was really impressed by '2312.'

Anne Frank's diary made a very big impression on me at age 12 or so.

One of the stories that really impressed me was 'Anna Karenina.' As a novel, that made an impression on me, showing me what the novel can do.

I haven't read enough of the Bible. You know, I'm saving the Bible for if I ever get imprisoned, and the only reading material was the Bible.

There's no end to the inventiveness of critics, I tell you. Because they can't write fiction, they put their impulse into their analysis of work.

In the end, I want to spend my 60s writing bonkbusters like Jilly Cooper.

I went to school to study literature and writing, even though I didn't end up really doing that in the end.

Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.

The whole purpose of books is that we read them, and if you find you can't, it might not be your inadequacy that's to blame. 'Good' books can be pretty awful sometimes.

I don't think I would ever inch my way up to Y.A. That audience is very well served. There are a lot of wonderful writers writing for Y.A. I feel like I'm in the right place.

My favourite authors include Trollope and Dickens.