Quotes About Literature

You knew beforehand that when you opened the magazine you would find the nasty anger of the pure-hearted.

If a novel's salient aim is virtue, I want to throw it against the wall.

The novella will be called, I think, "The Messiah of Stockholm." It takes place in Stockholm. I'd better say no more, or the Muse will wipe it out.

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.

Horror is the law of the world of living creatures, and civilization is concerned with masking that truth. Literature and art refine and beautify, and if they were to depict reality naked, just as everyone suspects it is (although we defend ourselves against that knowledge), no one would be able to stand it.

The worst possible sexual education: a taboo imposed by the Catholic church plus romantic literature elevating love to unreal heights plus the obscene language of my peers. After all, I was nearly born in the nineteenth century, and I have no tender feelings for it.

They visited a bookshop and each bought a paper-back thriller to read in bed.

Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep.

I find that most channeled discourses possess the spiritual and philosophical sophistication of a Dick-and-Jane book.

Books are people,'' smiled Miss Marks. ''In every book worth reading, the author is there to meet you, to establish contact with you. He takes you into his confidence and reveals his thoughts to you.

I can take a book in my hands and voyage across the world. China, Burma, Jamaica—the very sound of the words is an enchantment bringing me sights and sounds, and odors that my senses have never savored.

and what is more annoying than to be chatted to when you are absorbed in a book?

Mr. Pickwick, she thought, and Weller—yes, Sam Weller, that was his name—and the long lanky Mr. Winkle who fought in the duel. It's all exactly like that, she thought (trying to catch the aroma of the book, the bird's-eye view which we reproduce when we try to remember something read long ago and build up from an incident or a character in the story). It's all exactly like the background of Pickwick Papers.

Well, you asked me," said Ash. "I mean—well—you asked me, didn't you? I wouldn't have read them but there wasn't anything else to read—it was in hospital, you see." "Most people like my books," said Miss Walters faintly. "Most people are saps," said Ash.

Smouldering Fire was first published in the U.K. in 1935 and in the U.S. in 1938. Later reprints were all heavily abridged. For our reprint, Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press have followed the text of the first U.K. edition,

Julia understood perfectly and was not sorry to be banished, for she was half-way through Villette, which she had found on Uncle Randal's shelves. Lucy Snowe was annoying, of course (Julia would have liked to take her and shake her and tell her not to be a silly little ass), but all the same she was so enthralled by the creature's misadventures that it was difficult to put the book down.

Mrs. Ayrton was equally bewildered. She picked up the book and began to turn over the pages and in a very few moments her idea that Shakespeare's Plays were suitable reading for the young received a severe shock. She replaced the book in her husband's library and informed her daughters that they were not to read Shakespeare's Plays.

I rode my bike home and did the one thing that always helped when things weren't going well. I read. Books were my refuge. Getting lost in a solid adventure story was the best way I knew of to turn off reality.

If you write a lovely story about India, you're criticized for selling an exotic version of India. And if you write critically about India, you're seen as portraying it in a negative light - it also seems to be a popular way to present India, sort of mangoes and beggars.

I read 'Holes' in 10th grade, and I haven't read a full book since. The movie version with Shia LaBeouf was OK, but the book was way better.

When I was a kid, I knew the black and white version of 'Jane Eyre,' and I guess I became interested in the idea of romantic love - of unrequited love and the tragedies of that; of what are the important things in life; what should one value over other materials.

'Don Quijote' by Cervantes. I read the original Spanish version when I was in high school. Such a classic!

I started my first company when I was in my college dorm as a senior with two of my really good friends. We started a company that became SparkNotes.com. You know CliffsNotes? SparkNotes is a modern-day version of that.

A novelist's sense that he or she is 'above' a certain genre mainly comes out of the notion that the genre is somehow a debased version of his or her preferred form.