4,370 Quotes About Literature

كانت العجوز تقف بالضد من علامات التعجب، لان مثل هذه العلامات، ربما كان القصد منها، زواجاً غير شرعى أو غير قانوني، يؤدى إلى اختلاط الطبقات الاجتماعية.

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!--Hamlet (I, v, 106)

I will find you another long-forgotten Queen Mab poem in no time. Depend on it. I refuse to let Cody or anyone else know more about English Literature than me. So calm yourself, Elfish, and let an expert take over.

I have a plot, but not much happens.

I should point out, creating one's own style, as much as is required to illustrate one of the aspects, the golden seam of language, involves beginning again at once, in a different manner, adopting the guise of a pupil when one risked becoming pedantic - thus by a shrugging of one's shoulders, disconcerting some with their genuflecting stance, and immortalizing oneself in multiple, impersonal, or even anonymous forms in response to the gesture of arms raised in stupefaction.

Literature deals with morality but does not necessarily, does not, qua literature, help you to be more moral, either by precept or example. It makes you more aware. Which is to say that it makes you more human by making life more, not less, difficult. When you become more aware, the area of moral choice is widened. You can be a better man; you can also be a worse. Literature will not determine which. It is the equivalent of neither grace nor good works.

The Meadow... Only one of them succeeded in making a life here... He weathered. Before a backdrop of natural beauty, he lived a life from which everything was taken but a place. He lived so close to the real world it almost let him in.

Literature suffers because writers give their books to colleagues who will then write glowing reviews or saccharine introductions.

A history of literature, unlike history as such, ought to list only victories, for its defeats are no victory for anyone.