Literature Quotes

Literature is the garden of wisdom.

I also really liked playing Mr. Tumnus in 'Narnia'. I got to play my favorite character in children's literature, which I loved. You don't get the chance to do that in other jobs.

Le mensonge et les vers de tout temps sont amis. Lies and literature have always been friends.

I am inspired by human sexuality. The act itself is mechanical and holds little interest to me.

I write novellas because I don't like loose sprawling prose.

Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to Nature; it is his history.

There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.

Moriarty is arguably the most famous super-villain in terms of literature.

It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.

I don't like to meddle in my private affairs.

When I read, it is not acted literature; but what I write is written acting.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Poetry should describe itself, and always be simultaneously poetry and the poetry of poetry.

I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.

The frontiers we broke into in the '60s are still largely unexplored.

If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the "mirror" of literature?

To me the truth comes first and then the literature. We in China are dealing with a dictatorial system and we writers have to take a stance on it.

Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.

I'm not sure we're presenting ourselves as real role models. I don't think literature has ever been a real place for role models.

I don't think it's by accident that I was first attracted to translating two French women poets.

With English literature, if you do a bit of shonky spelling, no one dies, but if you're half-way through a maths calculation and you stick in an extra zero, everything just crashes into the ravine.

The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind.

Women encourage men to be childish, then scold them.

I have learned to keep to myself how exceptional I am.

Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.

In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.

Worried about being a dull fellow? You might develop your talent for being irritating.

My thought has been shaped by books; my desires by pictures.

In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.

I did not know I was in my prime until afterwards.

Rescue someone unwilling to look after himself, and he will cling to you like a dangerous illness.

Families in which nothing is ever discussed usually have a lot not to discuss.

Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.

Unlike the actual, the fictional explains itself.

In philosophy, the principles are more interesting than the examples. In literature, the examples are more interesting than the principles.

In the information society, nobody thinks. We expect to banish paper, but we actually banish thought.

I'm 82 years old, wherever I go everybody knows me, but here's why... I'm a merchandiser, I'm not just a writer, I stay in every avenue you can think of.

I read all the time... I read a lot of history books.

Isn't the greatest rule of all the rules simply to please?

I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.

I do not believe in guilt, moderation or dull pencils.

Literary theory has become a parody of science, generating its own arcane jargon. In the process, tragically, it discourages love of literature for its own sake.

Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment.

I love and care about literature, and great writers are our teachers. You're studying their mind when you read their work.

Rekindled love is generally short-term.

Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.

There is a vast difference between how things seem from the outside and how they feel on the inside.