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Literature Quotes
"There are numerous cases of that, where one of our writers discovers another writer whom he likes, and we then take that book on. So it's a very close relationship. We can do that because we're so small."
15
"I added 'writers' to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up."
15
"When Robert Frost was alive, I was known as the other new England poet, which is to be barely known at all."
15
"Writing had never become routine for him, but remained a constant surprise. He was always surprised at how much fun it was, once it all got moving. And never failed to be surprised at how bloody hard it was. It was like having an intense, frustrating love affair with a capricious, gorgeous, and often mean-spirited woman.He loved every moment of it."
15
"We may be willing to tell a story twice never to hear it more than once."
15
"What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature."
15
"Great novels are above all great fairy tales . . . literature does not tell the truth but makes it up."
15
"Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path."
15
"The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderful mustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her."
15
"A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous."
15
"Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost."
15
"Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning."
15
"Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile."
15
"Nonfiction that smells like fiction is neither."
15
"The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order."
15
"Literature doesn't exactly have a strong mental-health track record."
15
"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."
15
"I don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although, it's funny, actually, some of my favorite writers really do. Like Martin Amis. My dirty secret. 'London Fields' is one of my favorite books ever. And it's indefensible! But he's so funny... I forgive him everything."
15
"I wonder what it means about American literary culture and its transmission when I consider the number of American poets who earn their living teaching creative writing in universities. I've ended up doing that myself."
14
"Literature becomes the living memory of a nation."
14
"And in down times it shakes a lot of the bad SF out, a lot the stuff that was bought for literary reasons, which is neither entertaining nor great literature."
14
"Literature is air, and I'm suffocating in mediocrity."
14
"American literature had always considered writing a very serious matter."
14
"It seems to me that an author who has determined very new domains in literature is Gertrude Stein."
14
"Exciting literature after supper is not the best digestive."
14
"When I found the book was condemned as soon as the book was printed, or rather as soon as it was set up ready to print, I held it in plates for a year nearly, waiting to see what would come out of all this discussion."
14
"For me, literature is a complex game, both mental and concrete, which is acted out in a physical manner on the page."
14
"American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous."
14
"Only the more rugged mortals should attempt to keep up with current literature."
14
"I never reread what I've written. I'm far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I've done."
14
"It's so wrong when I pick up a new edition of Huckleberry Finn and I look at the last page and it doesn't say, Yours truly, at the end."
14
"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors."
14
"My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language."
14
"At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language."
14
"The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true-- not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe."
14
"Grayson: Fiction is just a lie anyway.Brianna: But it's not - it's a different kind of truth - it would be your truth at the time of the writing, wouldn't it?"
14
"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."
14
"When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced."
14
"In a word, literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities."
14
"And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
14
"I love the smell of old books, Mandy sighed, inhaling deeply with the book pressed against her face. The yellow pages smelled of wood and paper mills and mothballs."
14
"The short story, on the other hand, is the perfect American form."
14
"Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerales."
14
"An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else."
14
"The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer."
14
"However, if a poem can be reduced to a prose sentence, there can't be much to it."
14
"You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say?"
14
"All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand."
13
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