Quotes About Literature

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then.

PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION I

The prospect of seeing them no more, contributed greatly to calm her agitation, and, taking up a book, she composed herself to read.

so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to be sprinkled with hoar-frost. Immense

Unico spiraglio di luce in tanta tristezza erano i miei libri; fui fedele a loro com'essi eran rimasti fedeli a me e li rilessi da cima a fondo non so quante volte.

by embracing literary theory, we learn about literature, but more important we are also taught tolerance for other people's beliefs. By rejecting or ignoring theory, we are in danger of canonizing ourselves as literary saints who possess divine knowledge and who can, therefore, supply the one and only correct interpretation for a given text.

Any fool can write a book, and most of them are doing it

Most of the noted literary men have indulged in the prudent habit of selecting favorite passages for future reference.

Any fool can write a book and most of them are doing it; but it takes brains to build a house.

She wondered if literature might lose some of its interest when she reached an age or state of mind where her life was set on such a sure course that the things she read might stop seeming so powerfully like alternate directions for her being.

She always carried a book, though, in case she needed to read a few pages to avoid unwanted conversation.

Only a cad as low as a thief Would write in a book or turn down a leaf, Since 'tis thievery, as well is known, To make free with that which is not our own.

Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.

Some translators turn an author's words from gold to stone, others from stone to gold.

"The Ancient Mariner" — This poem would not have taken so well if it had been called "The Old Sailor"...

I love my love with a B... because in our teens we stayed all night at each other's house on alternate Saturdays and read aloud until four in the morning Brontë's "Jane Eyre"... (but not without weeping)!

I love my love with an M because through all one year in riding to work and back together, we carried Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Fatal Interview" in the automobile, and learned twenty-seven of the sonnets by heart. (A traffic stop is just time enough to say a sonnet if you really know it well.)

But what is more important in a library than anything else — than everything else — is the fact that it exists.

Indeed, a man's library is a sort of harem, and I observe that tender readers have a great prudency in showing their books to a stranger.

And my experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out.

If you haven't owed a library fine at least once in your life, you're not a real reader.

When I got the library card, that was when my life began.

The Literature of Man... When Plato – was a Certainty – And Sophocles – a Man – When Sappho – was a living Girl – And Beatrice wore The Gown that Dante – deified – Facts Centuries before...

I... was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments.