Italo Svevo quote: “The great modern novel of the comic-pathetic illusion of freedom is Confessions of Zeno.”

“You might with advantage take out your map of modern literature and mark on it the name of Italo Svevo…for Svevo and his novel, Confessions of Zeno…will henceforth be on other people's maps, and it is well that the atlases of the enlightened should agree.”

Italo Svevo (1861–1928) Italian writer

Arnold Bennett (ed. Andrew Mylett) The Evening Standard Years (London: Chatto & Windus, 1974) pp. 357-8.
Criticism

“I'd rather do comics than novels.”

Jim Starlin (1949) Comic creator

Interview at comicbookresources.com (28 July 2000) http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=194
Context: I've made more money in novels than I did in my entire career in comics. The few years I did novels, they paid off so well, I don't have to be a slave to doing comics. But I'd rather do comics than novels. If I wanted to do it just for the money, I'd run off and do another novel. I just don't have the juice for it. I'm really not interested in it. It's a love for what this medium is.

“To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 346

“The possibility of the impossible, dreams and illusions, are the subject of my novels.”

José Saramago book The Stone Raft

Introduction
The Stone Raft (1994)

“Zeno is one of the comic masterpieces of the century; as Svevo had previously used Flaubert more intelligently than any Italian before him, here he uses Freud in a way that no Italian has done since.”

Italo Svevo (1861–1928) Italian writer

Martin Seymour-Smith Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 3, p. 23.
Criticism

“Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Source: After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie

“I'd like to be remembered as someone who kept the comic novel going for another generation or so.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Off the Page: Martin Amis" (2003)
Context: I'd like to be remembered as someone who kept the comic novel going for another generation or so. I fear the comic novel is in retreat. A joke is by definition politically incorrect — it assumes a butt, and a certain superiority in the teller. The culture won't put up with that for much longer.

“I've made more money in novels than I did in my entire career in comics.”

Jim Starlin (1949) Comic creator

Interview at comicbookresources.com (28 July 2000) http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=194
Context: I've made more money in novels than I did in my entire career in comics. The few years I did novels, they paid off so well, I don't have to be a slave to doing comics. But I'd rather do comics than novels. If I wanted to do it just for the money, I'd run off and do another novel. I just don't have the juice for it. I'm really not interested in it. It's a love for what this medium is.

“The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

"The Mustard magazine interview" (January 2005)
Context: Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.

“The great modern novel of the comic-pathetic illusion of freedom is Confessions of Zeno.”

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