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"The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible."
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"Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire."
"A man reading the Dickens novel wished that it might never end. Men read a Dickens story six times because they knew it so well."
"I am no indiscriminate novel reader. The mere trash of the common circulating library I hold in the highest contempt."
"If the novels are still being read in 50 years, no one is ever going to say: 'What's great about that sixth book is that he met his deadline!' It will be about how the whole thing stands up."
"It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language."
"Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house."
"A life without books is a thirsty life, and one without poetry is...like a life without pictures."
"And Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book."
"Every healthy person at some period must feed on fiction as well as fact; because fact is a thing which the world gives to him, whereas fiction is a thing which he gives to the world."
"To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written, for there is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the language heard and the language read."
Explore more quotes by Washington Irving
"The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes."
"A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all."
"There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity."
"Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business."
"Rising genius always shoots out its rays from among the clouds, but these will gradually roll away and disappear as it ascends to its steady luster."
"There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place."
"The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible."
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