Quotes About Literature

It breaks my heart that we are always being nudged toward the most recently published books, when so many worthy books have gone unexplored.

I have faith that worthy but misunderstood or ignored books can still prevail - and when they do, fewer joys are as sweet - but authors have families to support and rent to pay, and for them, I hope for acclaim in their time rather than late-in-life or posthumously.

There's a socialist bias to the consensus of the literary world: a '30s mentality that says factory workers are more worthy of our attention.

There are many talented and worthy writers engaging horror in new, imaginative, and yes, terrifying ways.

Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.

I don't have a favorite author; I have favorite books. 'Moby Dick' is a favorite book, but Melville was a drunk who beat his wife. 'Moveable Feast' by Hemingway, but I would not like him personally. He was a stupid macho person who believed in shooting animals for fun, but that book was incredible!

Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.

I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.

The only thing worse than a bad review from the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a good review from the Ayatollah Khomeini.

In the past, I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby, Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics, Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all.

I think it goes without saying that young would-be playwrights in developmental workshops should be so lucky as to write plays as good as 'Waiting for Godot,' 'Uncle Vanya' or 'King Lear,' none of which would have existed without a decent plot.

I feel that there's a lot of would-be guardians of the culture who think that high-minded literary purpose and the life that gets chronicled in the gossip columns, that these two things are incompatible.

It was not until I began to write a book called 'Light Years' that an editor really stepped in. The editor was Joe Fox at Random House, and he wound up editing a subsequent book.

My biggest luck was the Terry McMillan era, because what happened after the phenomenon of 'Waiting to Exhale' is that publishing woke up. They said, 'Wow. Black people do read.'

I read some books, and I thought, 'This is better than sliced bread!' and a month later, I couldn't remember thinking about it. And I've read others that were kind of a slog, and I've put them down and come back six months later thinking, 'Wow, this is great.' So, you know, things change all the time.

Straightforward fiction functions only as more Bubble Wrap, nostalgia, retreat.

I remember reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' in high school in 1983. My family had immigrated to the U.S. three years before, and I had spent the better part of the first two years learning English. John Steinbeck's book was the first book I read in English where I had an 'Aha!' moment, namely in the famed turtle chapter.

You could think of extraordinary examples to the contrary: The Grapes of Wrath... and even into the 70s.

When you look at 'Grapes of Wrath,' the weakest moments are those in which Steinbeck is spouting a political idea directly at the reader. The book's real power comes from its slower, broader movement.

When you think about 'The Grapes of Wrath,' it's an American masterpiece, and a very long process goes into the making of such a book.

Faulkner is a really important figure in southern literature. I wrestle with him and his legacy every time I sit down and write a piece of fiction.

I've been wrestling with Kafka since I was an adolescent. I think he's a great aphorist, a great letter writer, a great diarist, a great short story writer, and a great novelist - I'd put novelist last.

In some ways, the best novel about terrorism, though it's not a novel, is 'The Looming Tower' by Lawrence Wright or 'Perfect Soldiers' by Terry McDermott.

The Bible for me is holy writ. It's a very straightforward thing, although I am not a literalist.