4,370 Quotes About Literature

Her book has perhaps been a good one; it has refreshed, refilled, rewarmed her heart; it has set her brain astir, furnished her mind with pictures.

Literature is map of humanity, the documenter of civilization. Books introduce us to the landscape of the greatest minds of every century.

Part of dedicating your life to studying literature is realizing that storytelling is more than just make-believe and that make-believe is far more important that we all pretend -- make believe -- it is. One way or another books tell the stories of their readers. But telling our lives is not the same as shaping them, whittling them away. Suddenly Jill had lost control. Her books had taken over and were in charge.

What if most fiction is, at best, moderately important? What if it is so vague and culturally drivel-some, and so mediated by everything else once the culture industry extrudes it through a writer-shaped nozzle, that our stern declarations about subversive literature are, mostly, kind of adorable?

There is nothing shameful about making an honest living.

Feng thought that her mother's education would give her confidence to speak up for what is right, but no amount of learning could unshackle her from society's attitude towards women, and she chose to remain an apathetic bystander.

A woman's life is not her own.

They believed that when a baby died at a very young age, the parents smacked its bottom to leave a bruise, so that if the child was reborn, it could be recognised by the markings on its body.

She had learnt to put pride aside early in life to secure a roof over her head.