4,370 Quotes About Literature

Story seems to say that everything happens for a reason and I want to say, No, it doesn’t.

A novel examines not reality but existence. And existence is not what has occurred, existence is the realm of human possibilities, everything that man can become, everything he's capable of. Novelists draw up the map of existence by discovering this or that human possibilit. But again, to exist mean: 'being-in-the-world.' Thus both the character and his world must be understood as possibilities.

Literature had torn Tessa and me apart, or prevented us from merging in the first place. That was its role in the world, I'd started to fear: to conjure up disagreements that didn't matter and inspire people to act on them as though they mattered more than anything. Without literature, humans would all be one. Warfare was simply literature in arms. The pen was the reason man invented the sword.

What does literature do better than anything else? It provides a detailed representation of the inner experience of being alive in a given time and place.

What a tribute this is to art; what a misfortune this is for history. (In reference to Shakespeare's 'Richard III')

Dacă nu-i vezi lacrimile unui om, nu înseamnă că el nu plânge pe ascuns în sufletul lui.

We men of this age are rotten with book-lore and with a yearning for the past.

إن الذاكرة خيال نختار أكثر مافيها تألقاً وأكثر مافيها قتامةً متجاهلين ما يخجلنا ونحوك هكذا سجادة حياتنا العريضة.

Not thou alone, but all humanity doth in its progress fable emulate. Whence came thy rocket-ships and submarine if not from Nautilus, from Cavorite? Your trustiest companions since the cave, we apparitions guided mankind's tread, our planet, unseen counterpart to thine, as permanent, as ven'rable, as true. On dream's foundation matter's mudyards rest. Two sketching hands, each one the other draws: the fantasies thou've fashioned fashion thee.