Quotes on Literature

I do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law, politics, or trade - or that modesty and virtue are more becoming to women than to men, but wish we had more of it everywhere.

If you read a lot of Chinese literature, there has always been very strong women figures - warriors, swordswomen - who defended honor and loyalty with the men. So, it's not new to our culture - it's always been very much a part of it. It's good that now the Western audience would have a different image of the Chinese women.

For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.

I think that literature has the important effect of creating free, independent, critical citizens who cannot be manipulated.

Literature is dangerous: it awakens a rebellious attitude in us.

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

My mother is not a woman of ordinary culture. She knows literature and speaks Spanish better than I do. She even corrected my poems and gave me advice when I was studying rhetoric.

One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights [...] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer.

For she was of that generation who, having found nothing in religion, had formed themselves through literature.

What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books.

I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.

I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.

The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German. from "Disappearance of Literature

Every poem is a momentary stay against the confusion of the world.

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.

What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.

I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this.