Quotes About Literature

Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things half as well as books do.

The books in Mo and Meggie's house were stacked under tables, on chairs, in the corners of the rooms. There where books in the kitchen and books in the lavatory. Books on the TV set and in the closet, small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin, books old and new. They welcomed Meggie down to breakfast with invitingly opened pages; they kept boredom at bay when the weather was bad. And sometimes you fall over them.

[Of Petronius:] Nero… looked up to him as a decisive authority in matters of taste.

My little hobby. Book Collecting. And yet, old friends, books do not age as you and I do. They will speak still when we are gone, to generations we will never see. Yes, the books must survive. -Bulldog

Voltaire expected that within fifty years of his lifetime there would not be one Bible in the world. His house is now a distribution centre for Bibles in many languages.

old friend, books do not age as you and I do. They will speak still when we are gone, to generations we will never see. Yes, the books must survive.

Not yet has my heart or headIn the least way realizedThey and I are civilized.

Does one approach the Scriptures (or any other influential document or collection of documents in the history of world civilization) with a hermeneutics of consent or a hermeneutics of suspicion? Christians have not done well in trying to read literature from other religions empathetically, and atheists and adherents of other world religions today increasingly approach the Bible with preexisting hostility.

Thus, a "psalm" may be defined secondly as sacred literature for meditation.

The influence of William Shakespeare on the English language and literature can hardly be exaggerated. His life spanned A.D. 1564 to 1616 and he made a name for himself as a poet and playwright. Creating such memorable works as Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, he has become the most-quoted author of the English-speaking world. Because of this, many of the words and phrases he used or coined are still in use today. His plays are still studied and performed.

There are a number of smells I've loved in my lifetime, but few can compare with the smell of a bookstore.

looking at the piles around us—they were like literary land mines just waiting to explode minds.

At least I'm not reading a book by Alexander dumass.

It was like being trapped forever in the present tense of the first line of a first reader.

And I realize I've been betrayed by the two vices that fiction promised me I'd adore. Sal Paradise held up bottles of booze like a housewife in a detergent commercial. Holden Caulfield reached for his cigarettes like an act of faith. Even Huckleberry Finn tapped on his pipe with relief and satisfaction. If sex turns out to be this bad, I'm never reading again.

On my first visit to the public library, I was like a kid at a candy store where all the candy was free. I gorged myself until my tummy ached.

Dr. Samuel Johnson discounted that notion: "Sir, a woman's composing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.

Books were despised by the Viking Tribes, as they were seen as a horrible civilizing influence and a threat to the barbarian culture.

Before students leave, I ask for an exit ticket. I have students record on a sticky note one question they have about the book.

She was the reason I was a reader, and being a reader was what had made me most myself; it had given me the gifts of curiosity and sympathy, an awareness of the world as an odd and vibrant contradictory place, and it had me unafraid of its oddness and vibrancy and contradictions.

bookshelves, which were full of what she thought of as "fake" books—the books were real enough but if Celia Baxter had read Thomas Pynchon or Samuel Beckett or even all—any!—of the Philip Roths and Saul Bellows lined in a row, she'd eat her mittens.

For Girard, however, literature is more than a record of historical truth, it is the archive of self-knowledge.

Four kids in T-shirts and jeans jam on a powwow stage. They're grinning, bouncing, fully engaged with their music, each other, and the relaxed crowd. I'm splitting fry bread with a cousin as we cheer on the band, and across the tent, a young girl reading a paperback catches my eye. In that moment, I wish for more characters like those kids in the pages of children's books. This anthology is a fulfillment of that wish.

Get thee to the novel! - the novel, that word-woven submarine, piloted by intimation and intuition, that will dive you to the deeps of the heart's maelstrom.