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Literature Quotes
"Literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist."
193
"The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it."
162
"Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood."
155
"The biography of a writer - or even the autobiography - will always have this incompleteness."
144
"A book is not completed till it's read."
133
"Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England."
130
"The novel is a penetrating study of morals and ethics."
90
"The nastiest kind of writer is a ghostwriter, who bears people's children in their body for money."
89
"I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five."
82
"Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction -- Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn ... No -- Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it was what prayed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and the short-winded elations of men."
76
"A book is a gift you can open again and again."
71
"We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'."
70
"We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice, heroism, war, politics and family struggle."
68
"Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer."
67
"It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much."
66
"Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead."
64
"I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened."
61
"The house burned an hour before midnight on the last day of April. The wild, distant ringing of the fire bells woke George Hazard. He stumbled through the dark hallway, then upstairs to the mansion tower, and stepped outside into the narrow balcony."
61
"All great literature is one of two stories, a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town."
60
"The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting."
60
"That's how stories happen - with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There's only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story."
60
"I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature."
59
"Through words to the meaning of thoughts with no words."
59
"In the literature of France Moliere occupies the same kind of position as Cervantes in that of Spain, Dante in that of Italy, and Shakespeare in that of England. His glory is more than national - it is universal."
58
"The natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us."
58
"What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote."
57
"You can quiz me on Petrarch, Medea, Shakespeare or Dante, I know them all, and I'm sorry, but they've all gone wrong. Dumb glorified men, writing words about love and life as if they knew. As far as I'm concerned, they didn't make it out alive either, so I'm sure as hell not going to go to them for advice."
57
"Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving."
57
"In this course I have tried to reveal the mechanism of those wonderful toys - literary masterpieces. I have tried to make of you good readers who read books not for the infantile purpose of identifying oneself with the characters, and not for the adolescent purpose of learning to live, and not for the academic purpose of indulging in generalizations. I have tried to teach you to read books for the sake of their form, their visions, their art. I have tried to teach you to feel a shiver of artistic satisfaction, to share not the emotions of the people in the book but the emotions of its author - the joys and difficulties of creation. We did not talk around books, about books; we went to the center of this or that masterpiece, to the live heart of the matter."
57
"Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it."
57
"A novel does not assert anything, a novel poses questions... The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. When Don Quixote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is the legacy of the first European novel to the entire subsequent history of the novel. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude."
56
"Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility."
55
"My book is traditional. It runs counter to the post-modern spirit."
55
"After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?"
55
"There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different."
54
"These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination."
53
"I remember thinking how easy it is to speak in clichés, to steal a line from pulp fiction and let it fall. We can only hover around the inexpressible with our words anyway, and there is comfort in saying what we have heard before."
53
"Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censerSwung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor."Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee--Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"Quothe the Raven, "Nevermore."
52
"I think Maus I is better than Maus II. The standard here is whether or not it's as good as a great book of prose literature and by that standard, no, it's not that great."
51
"There are few sights sadder than a ruined book."
51
"A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous."
51
"Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before...It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over."
51
"The short story, on the other hand, is the perfect American form."
51
"To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour."
50
"Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author."
50
"Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use."
49
"I've read your summary.""And?""It's not incompetent."Be still, my heart, so I don't faint from such faint phrase. "Did you expect it to be written in crayon?"
49
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