Quotes About Literature

That's my main complaint with Murakami: that he writes these complex males and then really static women.

A writer is defined by the language in which he writes, and I would stick to that definition.

I belong to the Russian language. As to the state, from my point of view, the measure of a writer's patriotism is not oaths from a high platform, but how he writes in the language of the people among whom he lives.

I'm going to name a name: Janet Evanovich. She writes the same book over and over, and I read every single one of them and eagerly anticipate them.

What I find weird is that the term 'chick lit' is used to encompass literally anything a woman writes about relationships. It's the assumption that because you're female, you must write in a certain way. I don't understand why that is - it is a bit demeaning.

My mother, along with Papa's other eventual wives - Pauline, Marty Gelhorn, Mary Welch - they all, at one time or another, no matter how angry they were at him at the moment, said, 'Look, Papa is special. He writes so beautifully. We have to let this go on.'

Suspense arises naturally from good writing - it's not a spice to be added separately.

I do not write for this generation. I am writing for other ages. If this could read me, they would burn my books, the work of my whole life. On the other hand, the generation which interprets these writings will be an educated generation; they will understand me and say: 'Not all were asleep in the nighttime of our grandparents.'

Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

It is not Kafka's fault that his wonderful writings have lately turned into a fad, and are read by people who have neither the ability nor the desire to absorb literature.

If we took Chaucer's writings at face value, we'd have to conclude he was a complete drip.

I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense... But it's unquestionably good escapist literature, and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from flu.

There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me to add to that huge number of people writing here when there are so few people writing about somewhere else.

A people's literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.

Writing about Africa by Africans has been part of my literary apprenticeship, standing alongside works by authors such as Joseph Conrad, Joyce Cary and Graham Greene as influences.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

I read everything I could find in English - Twain, Henry James, Hemingway, really everything. And then after a while I started writing shorter pieces in English, and one of them got published in a literary magazine and that's how it got started. After that, graduate school didn't seem very important.

Charles Blow's memoir 'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' was a breathtaking piece of writing.

I have concluded that Literature is no proper pursuit for a gentleman and that Writing ought never to be consider'd but as an elegant Accomplishment to be indulg'd in with infrequency and Discrimination.

I have my favorite cat, who is my paperweight, on my desk while I am writing.

Reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.

I have no interest in writing confessions, in deliberately baring myself to my readers. I prefer to remain behind a screen.

I just like to think about what I'm reading. Don't you?" "I don't read very well. So I don't think I think very well either." Galinda smiled. "I dress to kill, though.