Quotes About Literature

I have for myself no conceivable complaint to make, and yet for American literature in general, and its standing in a country where industrialism and finance and science flourish and the only arts that are vital and respected are architecture and the film, I have a considerable complaint.

We pass the word around we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry we meditate over the literature we play the music we change our minds we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other.

Gertrude Stein's prose-song is a cold, black suet-pudding.... Cut it at any point, it is the same thing ... all fat, without nerve.

Literature endures like the universal spirit, And its breath becomes a part of the vitals of all men.

I've lived on royalties all my life. It is the readers who have supported me.

She sucked in her stomach, ready to take it like a man, or at least like a romance novelist capable of reading her own royalty statements.

if it were part of a systematic approach they were taking to being well-rounded, self-actualised people: We exercise regularly, we go to the theatre, we read the right novels, not just the Man Booker shortlist but the Man Booker longlist, we see the right exhibitions and we take a real interest in international politics, social issues and our friends' cute children.

A pile of books filled her lap. They were all the books she'd ever written, including foreign language editions. The books were open at the top like cereal boxes. Frances dipped her hand into each book and pulled out great handfuls of words to scatter across the sky. 'Got one!' said Sol, from the back of the sleigh,

before realizing that everyone would have a turn choosing a book, and so she'd probably end up having to wade through some awful, worthy tomes.

If anyone uses the words 'marvelous imagery' or 'narrative arc,' slap them for me.

Callimachus divided the scrolls into separate classes, such as poetry, philosophy, and law, and then further subdivided them into a narrower range of subjects or genres.

If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.

No one knows the nature of God, or even if God exists. In a sense, all of our religions are literary works of the imagination.

No one ever expects poetry to sell.

A library card is the start of a lifelong adventure.

He agreed with Francis Bacon: Old friends to trust, old wood to burn, old authors to read.

Entonces advierte en él algo que muchas veces leyó en los libros: se ha reído con los ojos.

No hay literatura femenina. Hay hombres y mujeres que escriben".

Yaga de Winter was her own private joke; the old country loved literature a little too well.

It's a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.

That reverberation for me is what is most important about literature

A few days ago, a woman had come in with swatches of fabric and asked him to find her books only in those colors. Last week a man had been looking for War and Peace, and when Mitchell explained that he was temporarily out of anything by Tolstoy, the man asked if he had it by anyone else. It was a terrible time for books.

No one will actually come out and say this nowadays, but women are at their best when they're writing about men: their husbands, their fathers, their lost loves. It's when they start writing about themselves that they become unreadable.

Then I understood how hard it is to re-create in words what you see and feel in your head. That's what I love about Bernhard in the book. He manages to simulate consciousness, and it's contagious because while you're reading it rubs off on you and your mind starts working like that for a while. I love that. That reverberation for me is what is most important about literature. Not themes or symbols or the rest of that crap they teach in high school.