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Exlpore more Literature quotes

"Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that."

"As far as now I can tell that most Stephen King fans don't know him well. They have read or viewed few works and their judge is based on them... that's now well knowing a writer!"

"Although I love elegant parties, dancing and dining and spending the night with a sweet woman in my arms, my life belongs to literature."

"Of all public figures and benefactors of mankind, no one is loved by history more than the literary patron. Napoleon was just a general of forgotten battles compared with the queen who paid for Shakespeare's meals and beer in the tavern. The statesman who in his time freed the slaves, even he has a few enemies in posterity, whereas the literary patron has none. We thank Gaius Maecenas for the nobility of soul we attribute to Virgil; but he isn't blamed for the selfishness and egocentricity that the poet possessed. The patron creates 'literature through altruism,' something not even the greatest genius can do with a pen."

"Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. Though I've never led an army, I am a wanderer. I cradle 'The Odyssey' nights while the moon is waning, as if it were the sweet body of a woman."

"I read it a lot, whenever I find it in a library. Partly because I find new things every time I read it, but also because these BOOKS are always there for me. All of them are there for me. My life changes all the time, but books don't change. My reading of them changes-I can bring new things to them each time. But the words are familiar words. The world is a place you've been before, and it welcomes you back."

"The lot of the brideto be wed before beddesired until rotten.The lot of the authorto be read before bedadmired then forgotten."

"A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give."

"A novel is an impression, not an argument; and there the matter must rest."

"An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better."
Explore more quotes by Voltaire


"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason."


"Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same."


"Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life."


"I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."


"The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year."


"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
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