Literature Quotes

Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know.

Remarks aren't literature.

A country house is not the same as a house in a country and a hotel in the country is not the same as a hotel in a town but is it in a small town.

I rarely believe anything, because at the time of believing I am not really there to believe.

That is what war is and dancing it is forward and back, when one is out walking one wants not to go back the way they came but in dancing and in war it is forward and back.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.

Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder.

The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.

Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded.

There must always be some pretentiousness about literature, or else no one would take its pains or endure its disappointments.

What other culture could have produced someone like Hemmingway and not seen the joke?

It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later.

Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind.

I do lots of reading and speaking at many universities about literature and also about politics, which is as much a part of my life as the literature.

If critics of 'readable fiction' want literature to change the ways people dream, they need first to come down from the mountain and speak to the people.

I love the idea of literature as a room or series of rooms that allow you to be present as it slowly unfolds itself in all its capacities.

Writers rush in where publishers fear to tread and where translators fear to tread

A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself

Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story

For me, words are just words, nothing else

Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of somebody's wishing to become, of all things, a Professor of Literature.

The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.

Literature is breathing. I teach literature the way someone else might teach First Aid.

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry.

A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.

Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.

Literature is achieved anxiety.

Everything in life is arbitrary yet must be over-determined in literature. Jean McGarry knows how to tell a persuasive tale illuminating these truths.

If Milosevic is to be tried, he has to be tried by a proper court, an impartial, properly constituted court which has international respect.

As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra.

The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition.

If the national mind of America be judged of by its legislation, it is of a very high order ... If the American nation be judged of by its literature, it may be pronounced to have no mind at all.

I wanted to write literature that pushed people into their lives rather than helping people escape from them.

Every President hates the Press.

Twentieth-century American poetry has been one of the glories of modern literature.

God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.

There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

Time & Co. are, after all, the only quite honest and trustworthy publishers that we know.

All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all.

It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature.

I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted.

Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.

Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.