Quotes About Literature

The word and the image mutually excluded each other. Joseph was a literary man to his very marrow; he put faith in the invisible Word; it was the most miraculous thing in all the world; though without form it had more power than anything endowed with form

Great American Novel" = "doorstop of a book, usually pretentious, written by a man.

Occasions are rare when the best literature becomes, as it were, the folk literature, and generally speaking literature has always been carried on within small limits and under great difficulties.

Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing -- he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.

I see no reason in morality, why literature should not have as one of its intentions the arousing of thoughts of lust. It is one of the effects, perhaps one of the functions of literature to arouse desire, and I can discover no grounds for saying that sexual pleasure should not be among the objects of desire which literature presents to us, along with heroism, virtue, peace, death, food, wisdom, God, etc.

The newspaper is in all its literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct.

Read. Read until your eyes are sore. Then read some more.

Reading as an adult, for pleasure, is infinitely better than reading the stuff assigned to you back in school. You get to choose what you want to read.

You want a story? Go buy yourself a magazine.

I am picky about the books I read. I don't waste time on head trash. I think Benjamin Disraeli said it best, "When I want to read a good book I write one.

They weren't bad books. They were books that you didn't enjoy. It's not the same thing at all. The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that has been published is going to be a "good book" for someone.

And by the way"—she looks up suddenly—"I've read every single Agatha Christie novel ever published. Twice. So I might even be quite useful.

They weren't bad books, Phin countered patiently. They were books that you didn't enjoy. It's not the same thing at all. The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that has been published is going to be a 'good book' for someone

The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that had been published is going to be a 'good book' for someone

Yes," says Dido, her gaze resolutely on her computer screen. "OK. And by the way"—she looks up suddenly—"I've read every single Agatha Christie novel ever published. Twice. So I might even be quite useful.

They weren't bad books," Phin countered patiently. "They were books that you didn't enjoy. It's not the same thing at all. The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that has been published is going to be a 'good book' for someone." I

Os únicos livros ruins são aqueles tão mal escritos que ninguém publica. Qualquer livro publicado vai ser um "livro bom" para alguém.

They weren't bad books, Phin countered patiently. 'They were books that you didn't enjoy. It's not the same thing at all. The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that has been published is going to be a 'good book' for someone.

Maybe if he read enough novels about the problems of fictional people, he might find some clue about how to solve his own.

I've lowered my character with a great deal of unwholesome reading material.

People really want to set up these rivalries because there's a lot of vampire books out there. People want to believe we're all fierce rivals, and really there's just so much camaraderie with authors. Everyone kind of boosts each other.

I know not everyone starts out reading high literature. If you read enough you might be drawn to some other things, so maybe those vampire books are what they call 'gateway books.' I just coined that term. I don't know if there's a thing called 'gateway books.'

I don't like the vampire books. I don't like any of those.

I loved Anne Rice's 'Interview with a Vampire' and 'The Vampire Lestat'. I found a copy of 'Interview' when I was in seventh grade at a garage sale for 25 cents. It had a crazy cover.