Quotes on Literature

Everything progresses in waves. The march of civilization, the progression of worlds, is in waves. All human activities likewise progress in waves - art, literature, science, religion.

It’s all right to hesitate if you then go ahead.

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian “improving” literature. You’ll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

Literature is the only art in which the audience performs the score.

The question of manuscript changes is very important for literary criticism, the psychology of creation and other aspects of the study of literature.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

The short story is the literature of the nomad.

A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is; otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named.

The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages.

Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.

Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the harmonious development of both society and the individual.

Live with your century; but do not be its creature.

Nothing leads to good that is not natural.

Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor.

Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air.

Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.

While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man's humanity to man.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.