Quotes About Literature

I love books. If they are good books, I love them even more. But even if they are bad books, I still love them.

Literatuur wordt door zieken gemaakt. Wie gezond is, schrijft geen boeken.

Nothing becomes reality in the political life of a nation that was not present in its literature as spirit.

I have at last got busy about Mummy's grave. . . . . The inscription I should like is: EDITH MARY TOLKIEN 1889-1971 Lúthien :brief and jejune, except for Lúthien , which says for me more than a multitude of words: for she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien. … I never called Edith Lúthien – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion . Letter 340 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

May you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them. G. B. Smith's words were a clear call to Ronald Tolkien to begin the great work that he had been meditating for some time, a grand and astonishing project with few parallels in the history of literature. He was going to create an entire mythology.

I think The Lord of the Rings is in itself a good deal better than The Hobbit , but it may not prove a very fit sequel. It is more grown up—but the audience for which The Hobbit was written has done that also. The readers young and old who clamoured for 'more about the Necromancer are to blame, for the N. is not child's play. Letter 35 To [Publishers] C. A. Furth, Allen & Unwin

I've deprived my family in order to buy books. No doubt there is a special punishment in hell for such self-indulgence. Perhaps I shall be struck with blindness among the rarest known to men.

A lot of what the 'Culture' is about is a reaction to all the science fiction I was reading in my very early teens.

That made sense of gabby meetings: salient points isolated from the gush of acoustic froth. This paper belonged on a clipboard, not being defaced by dud literature. --Iain Sinclair

They could never quite reconcile themselves to the idea that our lives don't follow the dramatic arc that a good author gives to a great literary character. Only in accidents of pure perfection does the world actually become a stage." (Rule of Four, 54-55)

Reading never wears me out.

Because it is written by a nineteenth-century American, and because of its closeness to the twentieth century, The Portrait of a Lady foregoes Victorian affirmations. The price it pays, however (together with several twentieth-century novels) is that it eventually leaves the reader, along with its heroine, 'en Vair' amid its self-reflections.

When we discuss a novel it is only partially to hear another person's 'view', it is much more to find out what we ourselves think in order to possess the text more completely. Such a possession is then a composite one, it is the book itself and the articulated reaction to it. So vivid can be the latter that it is not uncommon to find that the pleasure survives the cause; some novels seem more enjoyable to talk about than to read.

Miss Austen has made herself known without making herself public.

There are too many books in the world.

I am still not happy about your decision to press ahead independently with these ideas for revamping Wee Wendy Waif, Nobody's Child; you should have gone through the proper channels, the Department of Arts and Crafts, the Bureau of Media Affairs, the Office of Socially Responsible Literature … they are there to help you, you know.

A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.

I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive.

A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.

Rebus lifted a Guardian

Ahí estaban los libros, en el cuarto de estar. Los libros de leer solían acabar en el dormitorio, en el suelo en filas, como enfermos en la sala de espera del médico.

I am reading Ian Rankins book Doors Open and am enjoying his dark Edinburgh narrative will rate soon once I have read it. I am also a fan of Jane Austen and have visited her Museum House in Chawton, Hampshire every year for the last three years. My Favourite book is Sense and Sensibility.

Sigmund Freud was a half baked Viennese quack. Our literature, culture, and the the films of Woody Allen would be better today if Freud had never written a word.

All through high school, I was reading Iceberg Slim. He was the first author I discovered who truly delved