Quotes About Literature

You need to read some Agatha Christie, man. Why? Am I being punished?

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Novelists would do well to remember that when the works of the scholar-historians create doubt in the researcher's mind, the researcher then turns to literature as a primary source for confirmation or correction. If the truth of a time, a people, a state is not available anywhere else, let it be in the novel. - from Twayne's US Authors Series: JOHN A WILLIAMS by Gilbert Muller

I discovered books and read forever

A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man.

The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss of Sappho's poems.

So what do you do when you're not working?' 'I read books, a lot of books. I have a cottage in Twickenham, right by the river. It's a small cottage, and the books take up a greater part of it. My wife and I are great readers.

all frail sufferers from the same disease that affected me, all ailing bibliomanes being treated for addiction, as in a literary methadone clinic...

God wasn't too bad a novelist, except he was a Realist.

I can't bear to be on a train without a book, she announced. It's a form of self-defence in a way .

The more you read, the more you write, the more the ideas will appear. They'll fall like confetti around your head and your only difficulty will be deciding which ones to catch and which to let fall to the floor.

From the introduction After all, the great joy of literature, as opposed to politics or religion, is that it embraces differing opinions, it encourages debate, it allows us to have heated conversations with our closes friends and dearest loved ones. And through it all, no one gets hurt, no one gets taken away from their homes, and no one gets killed.

There were others, such as Jack London,who offered their readers such a respite from the miserable horror of existence that their books were like gifts from the gods. (Character of Tristan Sadler in the Absolutist)

I blame Charles Dickens for the death of my father'.

Should women read, Miss Caine? There's a question for you. Does it excite them too much?

Would there be no end to publishing? he wondered. Perhaps it would be a good idea if everyone just stopped writing for a couple of years and allowed readers to catch up.

Do you write yourself?' I asked, and she shook her head. 'No, I wouldn't be able,' she said. 'I don't have the imagination. I'm a reader, pure and simple.

After all, the great joy of literature, as opposed to politics or religion, is that it embraces differing opinions, it encourages debate, it allows us to have heated conversations with our closest friends and dearest loved ones. And through it all, no one gets hurt, no one gets taken away from their homes, and no one gets killed.

What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times. Books, it is true, are silent as you see them on their shelves; but, silent as they are, when I enter a library I feel as if almost the dead were present, and I know if I put questions to these books they will answer me with all the faithfulness and fulness which has been left in them by the great men who have left the books with us.

I would prefer to have one comfortable room well stocked with books to all you could give me in the way of decoration which the highest art could supply.

He saw the role of the serious writer as both lofty and practical in the same instant. He used to say that literature was one of the first indications of civilization. He used to say that a fine piece of prose could not only cure a depression, it could clear up a sinus headache. Like many great healers, he meant to heal himself.

My best friends are books, I can easily read them and take them wherever I go.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.