Quotes About Literature

I was never ideological in any sense, or a slave to any particular politics or religion. My solace and my inspiration always came from books and literature.

I want my books sold on airport bookstalls.

I don't think the English like me. I sold a colossal best seller in America, and they never really forgave me.

I've sold 11 of my books to Hollywood. There are all kinds of my books on shelves in Hollywood because the scripts didn't capture the characters.

Hemingway hated me. I sold 200 million books, and he didn't. Of course most of mine sold for 25 cents, but still... you look at all this stuff with a grain of salt.

It's great that in the German language I've sold almost 30 million books. Isn't that amazing?

Paperbacks of those we deem classics should be cheap and sold at supermarkets.

I took to saying, 'Look, tell you what: Pick it up; open it anywhere. Read three pages. If you can put it down again, I'll pay you a dollar. So I never lost any money on that bet, but I sold a lot of books.

You get early inoculation against the idea of success if you're a poet. When I published my first collection of sonnets, I sold about five copies; now kids study them for A level. Wanting to be successful in that other world of money or fame is not interesting. Poetry isn't like that, and it never has been.

I think I became less literary after I sold more!

Ford Maddox Ford's 'The Good Soldier' is my favourite novel. I first read it in the 1950s and have read it about 20 times since. It's possibly the best-constructed book in the English language.

I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript.

A solitary child growing up in Africa, you're really quite dependent on books.

My favorite books are actually very complicated - 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', 'Ulysses'.

Look at Austen. In her novels, you get a dance, followed by an encounter, followed by a letter, then a period of solitude. No flashbacks and no backstory. Let's have no more back story!

When a locked-room mystery doesn't work, the solution makes you groan, and the book gets hurled across the room.

Shakespeare did not consider himself the legislator of mankind. He faithfully records man's problems and does not evidently propose to solve them.

I am more and more convinced that literature is made up of works, genres, schools, discussions, problems, collective work in order to solve certain problems.

I love Joan Didion, but I love her writing. I don't think meeting her could solve my problems or make me understand the world better.

I think people have the wrong idea of 'Moby Dick' as this somber, boring thing.

I know that some people use lavender, incense, and cake as sedatives, but for me, a 'nose bath' in an old book just does something.

I think finally good writing gets out there, and people like it, and bad writing doesn't. Well, no. Bad writing does get out there 'cause some people like it.

I'm a 'bound book' kind of girl. I have a Kindle, and I enjoy it for some things, like convenience or instant gratification, or all the little things that you can do with them.

The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.