4,370 Quotes About Literature

Funny way to spend your life, though, studying another chap's versifying.

The only truth is that we cannot speak the truth . The only acceptable viewpoint is that we cannot express a viewpoint.

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have.

As usual, it struck me that letters were the only really satisfactory form of literature. They give one the facts so amazingly, don't they? I felt when I got to the end that I'd lived for years in that set. But oh dearie me I am glad that I'm not in it!

Books have power to bring you glory or doom, it all depends on perception.

لم أكن أحسب نفسي أديباً شاعراً. فما كنت أكتبه من حين إلى آخر كان من قبيل الصحافة المسلية، لا من الأدب. لكني كنت فيما بيني وبين نفسي أحبس أملاً في أن تتاح لي في يوم من الأيام فرصة خلق شيء من الأدب، نشيد عظيم جرئ للحنين والحياة

The art teacher's scarlet book was called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. 'As the title suggests,' Mr Dunwoody saw the book'd caught my attention, 'it's about the history of opticians. What are you about?

Why is contemporary China short of works that speak directly? Because we writers cannot speak directly, or rather we can only speak in an indirect way.Why does contemporary China lack good works that critique our current situation? Because our current situation may not be critiqued. We have not only lost the right to criticise, but the courage to do so.Why is modern China lacking in great writers? Because all the great writers are castrated while still in the nursery.

To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect.