Quotes about literature

A collection of quotes on the topic of literature, can, art, other.

Best quotes about literature

„The best way to know the soul of another country is to read its literature.“

— Amos Oz Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual 1939 - 2018

„Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.“

— Fernando Pessoa, book The Book of Disquiet

A literatura é a maneira mais agradável de ignorar a vida.
Variant: To write is to forget. Literature is the pleasantest way of ignoring life.
Source: The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 116

„My weapon is literature“

— Chinua Achebe Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic 1930 - 2013

„Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.“

— Cassandra Clare, book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

„You know who critics are?— the men who have failed in literature and art.“

— Benjamin Disraeli British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister 1804 - 1881

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 35. Compare: "Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, if they could; they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics", Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, p. 36. Delivered 1811–1812; "Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic", Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fragments of Adonais.

„Painting is literature in colors. Literature is painting in language.“

— Pramoedya Ananta Toer, book Bumi Manusia

Source: Bumi Manusia

„Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.“

— Vladimir Nabokov Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor 1899 - 1977

„Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it.“

— Witold Gombrowicz Polish writer 1904 - 1969

„All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.“

— Franz Kafka author 1883 - 1924

„Without literature, life is hell.“

— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994

All quotes about literature

Total 1144 quotes literature, filter:

„Dr. Watson's summary list of Sherlock Holmes's strengths and weaknesses:

"1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.“

— Arthur Conan Doyle, book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

Law, Knowledge, Appearance, Parting

„The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.“

— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962

People, Truth, Study

„The sole substitute for an experience we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.“

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Russian writer 1918 - 2008

Art

„To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.“

— Fernando Pessoa, book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life, Art, Music, Way

„Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.“

— Arundhati Roy Indian novelist, essayist 1961

Source: An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2005), p. 86
Source: War Talk

Art, Music, Joy

„Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.“

— Thomas Sowell American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author 1930

„On graduating from the school, a studious young man who would withstand the tedium and monotony of his duties has no choice but to lose himself in some branch of science or literature completely irrelevant to his assignment.“

— Charles-Augustin de Coulomb French physicist 1736 - 1806

as quoted by [C. Stewart Gillmor, Coulomb and the Evolution of Physics and Engineering in Eighteenth-century France, Princeton University Press, 1971, 069108095X, 255-261]

School, Science

„A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a disc jockey, or a crummy mediocre politician. A man can be a hero because he suffers and despairs; or because he thinks logically and analytically; or because he is "sensitive"; or because he is cruel. Wealth establishes a man as a hero, and so does poverty. Virtually any circumstance in a man's life will make him a hero to some group of people and has a mythic rendering in the culture — in literature, art, theater, or the daily newspapers.“

— Andrea Dworkin Feminist writer 1946 - 2005

Speech at Queen's College, City University of New York (March 12, 1975). "The Sexual Politics of Fear and Courage", ch. 5, published in Our Blood (1976).

Life, People, Art, Thinking

„This work is not for the many; but in the unconscious, perfectly natural, irony of self-delusion, in all parts intelligible to the intelligent reader, without the slightest suspicion on the part of the autobiographer, I know of no equal in our literature…This and The Entail would alone suffice to place Galt in the first rank of contemporary novelists.“

— John Galt (novelist) British writer 1779 - 1839

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, manuscript note written in his copy of The Provost; cited from Thomas Middleton Raysor (ed.) Coleridge's Miscellaneous Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936), p. 344.
Criticism

Intelligence, Nature, Parting

„What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also the creative impulse.“

— E.M. Forster English novelist 1879 - 1970

"Anonymity: An Enquiry"
Source: Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Birth, Reading

„Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.“

— Borís Pasternak Russian writer 1890 - 1960

People, Art

„I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.“

— Flannery O’Connor American novelist, short story writer 1925 - 1964

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Family

„Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement… Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.“

— Lynn Margulis American evolutionary biologist 1938 - 2011

Source: Acquiring Genomes: A Theory Of The Origin Of Species

Death, Appearance, Change, Loss

„Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.“

— Gary Snyder American poet 1930

People

„Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything.“

— André Breton French writer 1896 - 1966

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)
Context: After you have settled yourself in a place as favorable as possible to the concentration of your mind upon itself, have writing materials brought to you. Put yourself in as passive, or receptive, a state of mind as you can. Forget about your genius, your talents, and the talents of everyone else. Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that lead to everything. Write quickly, without any preconceived subject, fast enough so that you will not remember what you're writing and be tempted to reread what you have written. The first sentence will come spontaneously, so compelling is the truth that with every passing second there is a sentence unknown to our consciousness which is only crying out to be heard.

„It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.“

— Richard Dawkins English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996)

Mathematics, Science

„Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.“

— Henry Miller American novelist 1891 - 1980

Life, People, World, Beauty

„In life there are two things which are dependable. The pleasures of the flesh and the pleasures of literature.“

— Sei Shonagon, book The Pillow Book

Source: The Pillow Book

Life, Pleasure, Dependency

„Literature is open to everybody. I refuse to allow you, Beadle though you are, to turn me off the grass. Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.“

— Virginia Woolf, book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own

Freedom, Grass

„The treatises of Darboux (1842–1917) and Bianchi (1856–1928) on surface theory are among the great works in the mathematical literature. They are: G. Darboux, Théorie générale des surfaces, Tome 1 (1887), 2 (1888), 3 (1894), 4 (1896), and later editions and reprints. L. Bianchi. Lezioni di Geometria Differenziale, Pisa 1894; German translation by Lukat, Lehrbuch der Differentialgeometrie, 1899. The subject is basically local surface theory.“

— Shiing-Shen Chern mathematician (1911–2004), born in China and later acquiring U.S. citizenship; made fundamental contributions to differ… 1911 - 2004

[1991, Surface Theory with Darboux and Bianchi, Miscellanea Mathematica, 59–69, Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76709-8_4]

Mathematics

„As one reads the scriptures of Christianity and Islam with a morally alert mind, one starts getting sick of the very sound of word ‘god’ which word is littered all over this literature like dead leaves in autumn. The deeds which are ascribed to or approved of by this God are quite often so cruel and obnoxious as to leave one wondering that if these are the doings of the Divine, what else is there which is left for the Devil to do.“

— Sita Ram Goel Indian activist 1921 - 2003

Defence of Hindu Society (1983)

God, Autumn, Reading, Dead

„The world itself is a great fusing pot, out of which the One Humanity is emerging. This necessitates a drastic change in our methods of presenting history and geography. Science has always been universal. Great art and literature have always belonged to the world. It is upon these facts that the education to be given to the children of the world must be built - upon our similarities, our creative achievements, our spiritual idealisms, and our points of contact. Unless this is done, the wounds of the nations will never be healed, and the barriers which have existed for centuries will never be removed.“

— Alice A. Bailey esoteric, theosophist, writer 1880 - 1949

Source: Education in the New Age (1954), p.46

Children, World, Education, Art

„So, in the end, have we learned anything from this look at why the world turned out the way it is, that's of any use to us in our future? Something, I think. That the key to why things change is the key to everything. How easy is it for knowledge to spread? And that, in the past, the people who made change happen, were the people who had that knowledge, whether they were craftsmen, or kings. Today, the people who make things change, the people who have that knowledge, are the scientists and the technologists, who are the true driving force of humanity. And before you say what about the Beethovens and the Michelangelos? Let me suggest something with which you may disagree violently: that at best, the products of human emotion, art, philosophy, politics, music, literature, are interpretations of the world, that tell you more about the guy who's talking, than about the world he's talking about. Second hand views of the world, made third hand by your interpretation of them. Things like that [art book] as opposed to this [transparency of some filaments]. Know what it is? It's a bunch of amino acids, the stuff that goes to build up a worm, or a geranium, or you. This stuff [art book] is easier to take, isn't it? Understandable. Got people in it. This, [transparency] scientific knowledge is hard to take, because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion, ideology, and leaves only what is demonstrably true about the world. And the reason why so many people may be thinking about throwing away those crutches is because thanks to science and technology they have begun to know that they don't know so much. And that, if they are to have more say in what happens to their lives, more freedom to develop their abilities to the full, they have to be helped towards that knowledge, that they know exists, and that they don't possess. And by helped towards that knowledge I don't mean give everybody a computer and say: help yourself. Where would you even start? No, I mean trying to find ways to translate the knowledge. To teach us to ask the right questions. See, we're on the edge of a revolution in communications technology that is going to make that more possible than ever before. Or, if that’s not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge that will leave those of us who don't have access to it, as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb and blind. And I don't think most people want that. So, what do we do about it? I don't know. But maybe a good start would be to recognize within yourself the ability to understand anything. Because that ability is there, as long as it is explained clearly enough. And then go and ask for explanations. And if you're thinking, right now, what do I ask for? Ask yourself, if there is anything in your life that you want changed. That's where to start.“

— James Burke (science historian) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer 1936

Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You

Life, People, Books, World

„I am a sincere Catholic as it were Corneille, Racine, La Bruyère, Bossnet, Bourdaloue, Fènelon, as were and still are so many of the most of the honor of out science, philosophy and literature, and have conferred such brilliant ustre on our Academies. I share the deep conviction openly manifested in words, deeds and writings by so many savants of the first rank, by a Ruffini, a Haüy, a Laënnec, an Ampere, a Pelletier, a Freycinet, a Coriolis and I avoid naming any of those living, for fear of paining their podesty. I may at least be allowed to say that I loved to recognize all the noble generosity of the Christian Faith in my illustrious friends the creator of Crystallography (Haüy), the introducers of quinine and stethoscope (Pelletier and Laënnec), the famous voyager on board of the 'Urania', and the immortal founders of the theory of Dynamic Electricity“

— Augustin Louis Cauchy French mathematician (1789–1857) 1789 - 1857

Frencinet and Ampère

Love, Pain, Fear, Faith

„If you search the scientific literature on evolution, and if you focus your search on the question of how molecular machines—the basis of life—developed, you find an eerie and complete silence. The complexity of life’s foundation has paralyzed science’s attempt to account for it; molecular machines raise an as-yet-impenetrable barrier to Darwinism’s universal reach.“

— Michael J. Behe American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate 1952

Source: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), p. (1996).

Life, Search, Question, Silence

„Literature and the arts are also criticism in a more particular and practical sense. They embody an expository reflection on, a value judgement of, the inheritance and context to which they pertain.“

— George Steiner American writer 1929 - 2020

Source: Real Presences (1989), I: A Secondary City, Ch. 4 (p. 11).

Art, Sense

„Whether it be generally recognized or not, what we call the civilized world, which for seven hundred years has been moving steadily forward in the spirit of liberalism and toward liberalism s high ideals, has now turned suddenly and violently backward. The guidance of reason and of understanding, of moral principle and of religious faith, has been shockingly and cruelly disslaced by the rule of brute force. Our literally stupendous achievements in literature, in philosophy, in the arts, in the sciences and in the comforts and conveniences of life count for nothing in the control of no national policy and of national conduct, and by far the major portion of the world is now under the rule of brutal compulsion. Such portion of the world as is not in that condition may soon be struggling for its life.“

— Nicholas Murray Butler American philosopher, diplomat, and educator 1862 - 1947

Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)

Life, World, Faith, Art

„When I was 15 or so, I stumbled on literature related to Indian spirituality, and instantly felt that there was something that held essential keys. I read several of the great masters, something of India's ancient literature, and finally decided that Sri Aurobindo's view of life and the world was what I was looking for. It was not a passing craze or a 'New Age' fad; it not only satisfied the intellect but also touched the core of the being.“

— Michel Danino Indian writer 1956

On Sri Aurobindo, as quoted in " The Sarasvati was more sacred than Ganga http://www.rediff.com/news/report/interview-with-michel-danino/20100522.htm", Rediff (22 May 2010)

Life, Age, World, Reading

„Another characteristic of the A. R. F.'s "Western"-dependent strategy is its complete disregard for the need to transfer the Armenian armed struggle to the historic Armenian homeland, the need to build a mass-based guerrilla force closely aligned with Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries. Many appeals in A. R. F. literature and propaganda are directed to "international public opinion" and other non-Armenian audiences. Meanwhile, few appeals are directed to the Armenian people themselves…“

— Monte Melkonian National Hero of Armenia 1957 - 1993

Source: The Right to Struggle (1993), P. 57.

People, Dependency

„The worst of his life is not that he thinks that it is living, but that he is satisfied with it, and the most awful thing of life is that he thinks that is how it should be. He can't understand anyone who thinks differently from him, and when he can't understand anything he says: I'm sorry, but I'm only a humble joiner. It's all he can do to accept that fact that I am studying the history of literature and Scandinavian languages: he accepts it not because I will thereby become mentally enriched, but because he thinks that it will enable me to live an easier life that he. Easier but not different.“

— Stig Dagerman, book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 200

Life, History, Understanding, Thinking

„As civilization develops, we become more preoccupied with human life, and less conscious of our relation to non-human nature. Literature reflects this, and the more advanced the civilization, the more literature seems to concern itself with purely human problems and conflicts. The gods and heroes of the old myths fade away and give place to people like ourselves.“

— Northrop Frye Canadian literary critic and literary theorist 1912 - 1991

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 2: The Singing School

Life, God, People, Nature

„Shivaji proved, by his example, that the Hindu race could build a nation, found a State, defeat its enemies; they could conduct their own defence; they could protect and promote literature and art, commerce and industry; they could maintain navies and ocean going fleets of their own, and conduct naval battles on equal terms with foreigners. He taught the modern Hindus to rise to the full stature of their growth. He demonstrated that the tree of Hinduism was not dead, and that it could put forth new leaves and branches and once again rise up its head to the skies.“

— Jadunath Sarkar Indian historian 1870 - 1958

Sir Jadunath Sarkar Shivaji and His Times, 1919, p. 406

Art, Tree, Dead

„The books to be read should not be limited to those written in English…. Instead it should be devoted to the great works of history, biography, philosophy, theology, natural science, social science, and mathematics, as well as the… tradition of Western literature -- in English translation… Its aim should not be a survey of Western civilization, but an effort to understand the basic ideas and issues in Western thought.“

— Mortimer J. Adler American philosopher and educator 1902 - 2001

Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 316

Books, History, Mathematics, Idea

„There are two fundamentally different ways for the strong to bend down to the weak, for the rich to help the poor, for the more perfect life to help the “less perfect.” This action can be motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one’s own life and existence. All this unites into the clear awareness that one is rich enough to share one’s being and possessions. Love, sacrifice, help, the descent to the small and the weak, here spring from a spontaneous overflow of force, accompanied by bliss and deep inner calm. Compared to this natural readiness for love and sacrifice, all specific “egoism,” the concern for oneself and one’s interest, and even the instinct of “self-preservation” are signs of a blocked and weakened life. Life is essentially expansion, development, growth in plenitude, and not “self-preservation,” as a false doctrine has it. Development, expansion, and growth are not epiphenomena of mere preservative forces and cannot be reduced to the preservation of the “better adapted.” … There is a form of sacrifice which is a free renunciation of one’s own vital abundance, a beautiful and natural overflow of one’s forces. Every living being has a natural instinct of sympathy for other living beings, which increases with their proximity and similarity to himself. Thus we sacrifice ourselves for beings with whom we feel united and solidary, in contrast to everything “dead.” This sacrificial impulse is by no means a later acquisition of life, derived from originally egoistic urges. It is an original component of life and precedes all those particular “aims” and “goals” which calculation, intelligence, and reflection impose upon it later. We have an urge to sacrifice before we ever know why, for what, and for whom! Jesus’ view of nature and life, which sometimes shines through his speeches and parables in fragments and hidden allusions, shows quite clearly that he understood this fact. When he tells us not to worry about eating and drinking, it is not because he is indifferent to life and its preservation, but because he sees also a vital weakness in all “worrying” about the next day, in all concentration on one’s own physical well-being. … all voluntary concentration on one’s own bodily wellbeing, all worry and anxiety, hampers rather than furthers the creative force which instinctively and beneficently governs all life. … This kind of indifference to the external means of life (food, clothing, etc.) is not a sign of indifference to life and its value, but rather of a profound and secret confidence in life’s own vigor and of an inner security from the mechanical accidents which may befall it. A gay, light, bold, knightly indifference to external circumstances, drawn from the depth of life itself—that is the feeling which inspires these words! Egoism and fear of death are signs of a declining, sick, and broken life. …
This attitude is completely different from that of recent modern realism in art and literature, the exposure of social misery, the description of little people, the wallowing in the morbid—a typical ressentiment phenomenon. Those people saw something bug-like in everything that lives, whereas Francis sees the holiness of “life” even in a bug.“

— Max Scheler German philosopher 1874 - 1928

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 88-92

Love, Life, Death, People

„I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book.“

— G. K. Chesterton, book All Things Considered

"The Case for the Ephemeral"
All Things Considered (1908)
Context: I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that our commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had been handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think of, except dynamite.
Their chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I had no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is so hard to be frivolous.

Love, People, Books, Understanding

„According to me, the influence of Sanskrit literature on our time will not be lesser than what was in the 16th century Greece's influence on Renaissance. One day, India's wisdom will flow again on Europe and will totally transform our knowledge and thought.“

— Arthur Schopenhauer, book The World as Will and Representation

preface of his The World as Will and Representation., quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Knowledge, Wisdom, Time

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

— Doris Lessing, book A Proper Marriage

Source: A Proper Marriage

Religion

„Literature offers the thrill of minds of great clarity wrestling with the endless problems and delights of being human. To engage with them is to engage with oneself, and the lasting rewards are not confined to specific career paths.“

— Jonathan Stroud British writer of fantasy fiction 1970

Problem

„There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.“

— Lawrence Durrell, book Justine

Source: The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Justine (1957)

Love, Suffering

„Literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it.“

— James Baldwin (1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924 - 1987

People, World, Way, Reality

„All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.“

— Leo Tolstoy Russian writer 1828 - 1910

„An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its 'self-help' section: 'For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.“

— Roger Ebert American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter 1942 - 2013

Source: I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie

Books, History, Thinking, Science

„I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity. Books are unconvertible assets, to be passed on only to those who possess them already.“

— Anthony Powell, book The Valley of Bones

Source: The Valley of Bones

Life, Books, Time

„Through it [literature] we know the past, govern the present, and influence the future.“

— Charlotte Perkins Gilman American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer 1860 - 1935

Source: The Man-Made World

Past, Future

„Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.“

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón, book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Art, Music, Science

„To put it in a nutshell, he was afflicted with a love of literature. It was the fatal nature of this disease to substitute a phantom for reality.“

— Virginia Woolf, book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Love, Disease, Nature, Reality

„He knew everything there was to know about literature, except how to enjoy it“

— Joseph Heller, book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

„Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child… Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.“

— Orson Scott Card American science fiction novelist 1951

Children, Books, Patience

„Literature is the only access to truth we have on this planet.“

— Stephen Fry English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist 1957

Truth

„Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.“

— Susan Sontag American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist 1933 - 2004

Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)
Context: To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck. Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom.
Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

Freedom, Time, Reading

„It is quite possible for a work of literature to operate as a war machine upon its epoch.“

— Monique Wittig French writer 1935 - 2003

War

„The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.“

— Margaret Atwood Canadian writer 1939

Question, Dependency

„All literature is protest.“

— Richard Wright African-American writer 1908 - 1960

„Literature is that which he can not read without pain, without choking on truth.“

— Roland Barthes French philosopher, critic and literary theorist 1915 - 1980

Pain, Truth, Reading

„We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.“

— T.S. Eliot 20th century English author 1888 - 1965

Religion

„Hardly anyone about whom I deeply care at all resembles anyone else I have ever met, or heard of, or read about in literature.“

— Renata Adler American author, journalist and film critic 1938

Source: Speedboat

Reading

„Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.“

— Virginia Woolf, book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 3, p. 58

Men

„Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature's profligate generosity.“

— Pat Conroy American novelist 1945 - 2016

Source: My Reading Life

Books, Feeling, Parting

„Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.“

— John Cheever American novelist and short story writer 1912 - 1982

Entry in his journal before his last public appearance, the ceremony at which he received the National Medal for Literature, quoted by Susan Cheever, Home before Dark Houghton Mifflin (1984).

World, Lovers, Despair

„Painting taught literature to describe.“

— Orhan Pamuk Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient 1952

Painting

„Literature as a whole is not an aggregate of exhibits with red and blue ribbons attached to them, like a cat-show, but the range of articulate human imagination as it extends from the height of imaginative heaven to the depth of imaginative hell.“

— Northrop Frye Canadian literary critic and literary theorist 1912 - 1991

Source: The Educated Imagination

Imagination, Cats, Hell

„Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn except what is written between the lines.“

— Raymond Chandler Novelist, screenwriter 1888 - 1959

„In general there should be gay characters in YA because a) surprise, there are gay folks everywhere and b) in my opinion as a father, there’s not a damn thing wrong with my child encountering gay folks in her literature, because see point a).“

— John Scalzi American science fiction writer 1969

„Only literature can grant you access to a spirit from beyond the grave—a more direct, more complete, deeper access than you’d have in conversation with a friend.“

— Michel Houellebecq writer 1956

Source: Submission

„Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature“

— Anita Brookner, A Start in Life

Source: A Start in Life

Life

„We have a name for your disease. We call it a hyper-aesthetic one. You have been encouraged to over-indulge yourself in literature; and have inflamed your organs of fancy.“

— Sarah Waters, book Fingersmith

Source: Fingersmith

Disease

„If you're going to binge, literature is definitely the way to do it.“

— Oprah Winfrey American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist 1954

Way

„… our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding.“

— Helen Keller, book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Understanding, Dependency

„The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility.“

— Anaïs Nin writer of novels, short stories, and erotica 1903 - 1977

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947

People, Fear, Evil

„My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.“

— George Bernard Shaw Irish playwright 1856 - 1950

„Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.“

— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900

Imagination, Lying

„All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. […] it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.“

— Ernest Hemingway, book Green Hills of Africa

Part I, Ch. 1
Green Hills of Africa (1935)

Books

„In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.“

— Terry Pratchett, book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

Hate, Books, Reading

„The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.“

— Elizabeth Drew American journalist 1935

Reading

„Reality is not an inspiration for literature. At its best, literature is an inspiration for reality.“

— Romain Gary French writer and diplomat 1914 - 1980

Reality

„The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.“

— Gustave Flaubert French writer (1821–1880) 1821 - 1880

Way

„Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.“

— Philip Roth American novelist 1933 - 2018

„The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.“

— T.S. Eliot 20th century English author 1888 - 1965

„People don't expect too much from literature. They just want to know they're not alone with being confused.“

— Jonathan Ames American novelist, memoirist 1964

People

„A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless'…“

— Christopher Hitchens British American author and journalist 1949 - 2011

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Love, Life, Friendship, Music

„She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.“

— Michael Cunningham, book The Hours

Source: The Hours

Life

„This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.“

— Julian Barnes, book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Life, Fear

„There's no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.“

— Stephen R. Covey, book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Way, Reading

„Really, when I think it over, literature has only one excuse for existing; it saves the person who makes it from the disgustingness of life.“

— Joris-Karl Huysmans, book Là-Bas

Source: Là-Bas

Life, Thinking, Personality

„Every man's memory is his private literature.“

— Aldous Huxley English writer 1894 - 1963

Memory

„Literature is humanity's broad-minded alter-ego, with room in its heart for monsters, even for you. It's humanity without the judgement.“

— Glen Duncan British writer 1965

Source: Talulla Rising

Heart

„Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.“

— Samuel Butler, book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 14
Context: Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.

Music, Back To Work

„Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.“

— Jorge Luis Borges, book Other Inquisitions

"Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw"
Variant translation: A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present time — this one, for instance — as it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Books, Reading