Quotes About Literature

No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.

It is the glorious doom of literature that the evil perishes and the good remains. Even when the original author of some healthy and useful truth is forgotten, the truth survives, transplanted to works more calculated to purify it from error, and perpetuate it to our benefit.

Revelation was one of the relatively few documents from among the vast literary output of early Christianity that survived the canonical process and became Holy Scripture for the Christian community.

It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.

We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. The appeal of literature is that it is so thoroughly a human thing — by, for and about human beings. If you lose that focus, you obviate the source of the power and permanence of literature.

It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.

What is literature, and why do I try to write about it? I don't know. Likewise, I don't know why I go on living, most of the time. But this not knowing is precisely what I want to preserve. As readers, the closest way we can engage with a literary work is to protect its indeterminacy; to return ourselves and it to a place that precludes complete recognition. Really, when I'm reading, all I want is to stand amazed in front of an unknown object at odds with the world.

We remember the best fiction as though experienced, and we finish the greatest works with access to the inner-lives of the mind in a way life refuses us.

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is a pleasure beyond compare." -Kenko Yoshida

Most important, it seems Stalin wanted to use the example of Shostakovich to scold and worry all of the Soviet Union's cultural leaders, rebuking them for turning away from "real art, real science, and real literature." He wanted to assert the infinite power of his regime and to show them that no one was safe.

Si a literatura musical brasileira fosse vasta, eu não publicaria este livro. Porém muitas vezes tenho sofrido nos olhos dos meus discípulos a angústia dos que desejam ler. Si por um momento eu lhes minorar essa angústia, este livro terá cumprido o seu destino, pois foi isso unicamente o que pretendi.

A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his readers.

Nor must you find fault with me if I often give you what I have borrowed from my various reading, in the very words of the authors themselves.

I could give you a number of examples to show how widespread has been this practice of mutual pilfering among the authors of our old literature.... by transferring something of theirs to his own immortal work he [Virgil] has ensured that the memory of these old writers—whom, as the tastes of today show, we are already beginning to deride as well as to neglect—should not wholly perish.

Name one hero who was happy. You can't.

The words slid into me, smooth as a polished knife.

The poets were always correct,'' I say softly. ''You are half my soul.

The door snicked shut.

She lives so completely in books that I don't think she takes anything that happens in the real world very seriously. She

While his bread remains sweet, his novels may be as bitter as he likes.

Those who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write, Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.

Yet if a Poem have a Genius, it will force its own reception in the World.

Jika politik itu kotor, puisi akan membersihkannya. Jika politik bengkok, sastra akan meluruskannya.

Ogni epoca, ogni epoca colpevole, erige alte mura intorno alle sue Versailles; e io personalmente le odio ancora di più quando vengono costruite dalla letteratura e dall'arte.