Quotes on Literature

But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.

I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery.

Facts are not science - as the dictionary is not literature.

The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.

The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.

You can't understand European history at all other than through religion, or English literature either if you can't recognise biblical allusions.

The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to those of the land and do not transgress what is just, for them the city flourishes and its people prosper.

I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.

Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.

Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something.

A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.

You will be judged in years to come by how you responded to genocide on your watch.

Literature - novels, plays, and poems - can have an uncanny dual life, where they simultaneously represent something eternal and something historical, and this is often how they are taught in school.

You should never read just for "enjoyment." Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends' insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick "hard books." Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god's sake, don't let me ever hear you say, "I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth." Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of "literature"? That means fiction, too, stupid.

The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.

I'm very attracted to exile literature - particularly Nabokov - exactly because the idea of being away from home for any serious length of time is so inconceivable to me.

The wavering mind is but a base possession.

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Listen closely. There’s a remote possibility that you might learn something: First, I don’t give a damn if my work is commercial or not…I’m the writer. If what I write is good, then people will read it. That’s why literature exists. An author puts his heart and guts on the page. For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don’t believe in yourself.