Quotes About Literature

Eliza was my first name for two reasons. My dad was reading 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' which features the maid Eliza in it, when I was born. Then there was Eliza Doolittle from 'My Fair Lady' and 'Pygmalion.' My mum always loved the name, and I got called Eliza Doolittle a lot, so it stuck, basically.

By the time I was in my teens, I was reading science fiction. I had this maternal uncle who had cartons of books. It's important to read because you have to fill your head with words.

Some of my favourite characters have been people like Masha in 'Three Sisters' and Elena in 'Uncle Vanya.'

Tolkien is considered the grandfather of fantasy and, for me, I consider myself the grandson, with Terry Brooks as the kind of crazy uncle of fantasy, being the one who brought me into it.

I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer.

One shouldn't ever be conscious of the author as lecturer. When social or moral points are too heavily stressed, I always get uncomfortable.

The magical and fantastical isn't something I'm uncomfortable with in books, and I chafe slightly at the idea that a purely realist novel somehow has more value.

I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.

I guess I cringe when the discussion leads to, rather than books and sentences and characters and the stuff that writers are supposed to be concerned with, how to have an online presence and how many followers you have on Twitter. That stuff always makes me uncomfortable.

I read a lot about her. I read a lot of bios. I read bios about the royal family; I read this little novella called 'The Uncommon Reader,' which is a fiction: it's about Queen Elizabeth going on this library bus and choosing books and reading them, but it's so sweet.

It's not uncommon for men to show up at my book signings or to send me emails with their thoughts about my books. I've also heard from a number of female readers who were introduced to my works by men in their lives.

My theory is that literature is essential to society in the way that dreams are essential to our lives. We can't live without dreaming - as we can't live without sleep. We are 'conscious' beings for only a limited period of time, then we sink back into sleep - the 'unconscious.' It is nourishing, in ways we can't fully understand.

I have an unconscious burglar living in my mind: If I read something, it's mine. I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.

As with all great works of literature, 'Of Mice and Men' moves with the inexorability of a huge river, and it pours itself, exhausts itself, in the sea of our unconscious. Having read it, we carry the book inside us forever.

And yet what is Modernism? It is undefined.

I'm a sucker for any band named after a work of literature. Los de Abajo take their name from Mariano Azuela's famous novel 'The Underdogs,' and that says a lot about who they are and the music they make.

Don't underestimate Laura Antonelli. She's burning to do well. And then she has an extraordinary face, even without make-up. It's not with her that I'd discuss literature. I speak only of the film 'L'Innocente,' and what she does she does well.

You cannot underestimate the influence of Shakespeare.

Literary dementia seems dated now, but there was a time when a month in the funny farm was as de rigueur for budding writers as an M.F.A. is now. To be sent away was a badge of honor; to undergo electroshock, a glorious martyrdom.

I went to Vassar College for undergraduate and studied literature and queer theory, and all of the above. And then I took a Fulbright scholarship in Russia.

As an undergraduate at Amherst College, I was devoted to Dickensian novels and antiestablishment journalism while marginally fulfilling premedical requirements.

As an undergraduate, I had not studied literature - I was a history major.

The highlight of my undergraduate years was a year-long Shakespeare course I took with Edward Tayler.

My undergraduate degree is in geography and sociology, so I had like no real training with words.