Literature Quotes

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.

A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

They're thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make him a good and prosperous farmer and then he'll learn all that is necessary for him to know.

I felt a wish never to leave that room - a wish that dawn might never come, that my present frame of mind might never change.

If you are good, they say you are weak.

Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.

Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next. Books save lives.

But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.

The ability to read becomes devalued when what one has learned to read adds nothing of importance to one's life.

Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish this desired end.

Life without literature is a life reduced to penury.

The classic literature is always modern.

In general, in poetry and literature, I am among those people who believe that too much is indispensable.

Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.

Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.

During the many centuries that magic, here on this planet, was presumed to have worked, there were at least as many theories as to how magic worked as there were cultures and religions.

The Public - a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.

Violence is hidden within democratic structures because they are not radically democratic - Western democracy is merely a domestic convenience of consumerism.

Each person has a literature inside them.

Right is its own defense.

The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.

Isn't connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?

I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.

The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage.

It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.

The literature of a people must so ring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty.

Because our choices are largely based on survival. But if life is eternal, life is not a question.

My greatest influence has been the blues. And that's a literary influence, because I think the blues is the best literature that we as black Americans have.

Emotion is messy, contradictory... and true.

In the lack of judgment great harm arises, but one vote cast can set right a house.

Now the novels that are read are purely entertainment – well done, very polished, with a very effective technique – but not literature, just entertainment.

A little bit of attention can go a long way.

Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.

I have the fault of being a little more sincere than is proper.

The modern work of art, as I have said, is a symbol.

Literature speaks the language of the imagination, and the study of literature is supposed to train and improve the imagination.

In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression.

The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages. In all modesty, I confess that it may be the death of literature as we know it.

Literature, fiction, poetry, whatever, makes justice in the world. That's why it almost always has to be on the side of the underdog.

The eye is the notebook of the poet.

It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

All analysts spend half their time hunting through the literature for inequalities which they want to use and cannot prove.

The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.