Quotes About Literature

There is a story that for me comes before all other stories and of which all the stories I read seem to carry an echo, immediately lost. In my readings I do nothing but seek that book read in my childhood, but what I remember of it is too little to enable me to find it again.

??c là ni?m cô ??n.

The universe and the void: I'll return to these two terms, between which swings the aim of literature, and which often seem to mean the same thing.

All that can be done is for each of us to invent our own ideal library of our classics; and I would say that one half of it would consist of books we have read and that have meant something for us and the other half of books which we intend to read and which we suppose might mean something to us. We should also leave a section of empty spaces for surprises and chance discoveries.

I'm accustomed to thinking of literature as a search for knowledge; in order to move onto existential terrain I need to consider it in relation to anthropology, ethnology, and mythology.

In an age when other fantastically speedy, widespread media are triumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single homogeneous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language.

Reader, it is time for your tempest-tossed vessel to come to port. What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library? Certainly there is one in the city from which you set out and to which you have returned after circling the world from book to book.

Overambitious projects may be objectionable in many fields, but not in literature. Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement.

Un classico è un libro che non ha mai finito di dire quel che ha da dire.

in his view, literature's worth lies in its power of mystification, in mystification it has its truth; therefore a fake, as the mystification of a mystification, is tantamount to a truth squared. He

What is more natural than that a solidarity, a complicity, a bond should be established between Reader and Reader, thanks to the book?

Writing consists no longer in narrating but in sayin that one is narrating, and what one says becomes identified with the very act of saying. The psychological person is replaced by a linguistic or even a grammatical person, defined solely by his place in the discourse.

To be able to read the classics you have to know "from where" you are reading them; otherwise both the book and the reader will be lost in a timeless cloud.

I read, therefore it writes

The Sultan's wife must never remain without books that please her: a clause in the marriage contract is involved, a condition the bride imposed on her august suitor before agreeing to the wedding....

In the infinite universe of literature there are always other avenues to explore, some brand-new and some exceedingly ancient, styles and forms that can change our image of the world. And when literature fails to assure me that I'm not merely chasing dreams, I look to science to sustain my visions in which all heaviness dissolves . . .

Literature is necessary to politics above all when it gives a voice to the one who doesn't have a voice, when it gives a name to the one who doesn't have a name, and especially to all that political language excludes or tends to exclude…Literature is like a ear that can hear more than Politics; Literature is like an eye that can perceive beyond the chromatic scale to which Politics is sensitive.

La letteratura vive solo se si pone degli obbiettivi smisurati, anche al di là d'ogni possibilità di realizzazione.

Dati biografici: io sono ancora di quelli che credono, con Croce, che di un autore contano solo le opere. (Quando contano, naturalmente.) Perciò dati biografici non ne do, o li do falsi, o comunque cerco sempre di cambiarli da una volta all'altra. Mi chieda pure quel che vuol sapere, e Glielo dirò. Ma non Le dirò mai la verità, di questo può star sicura. Lettera a Germana Pescio Bottino, 9 giugno 1964

Let us move forward in thought to three thousand years from now. Who knows which books from our period will be saved, and who knows which authors' names will be remembered. Some books will remain famous but will be considered anonymous works, as for us the epic of Gilgamesh; others author's names will still be known, but none of their works will survive, as was the case with Socrates; or perhaps, all the surviving books will be attributed to a single, mysterious author, like Homer.

All interpretation is a use of violence and caprice against a text.

Ogni libro nasce in presenza di altri libri, in rapporto e confronto ad altri libri.

La lettura è un rapporto con noi stessi e non solo col libro, col nostro mondo interiore attraverso il mondo che il libro ci apre.

No se leen los clásicos por deber o por respeto, sino sólo por amor.