“A great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or agree with it. A great piece of literature simply is.
It is a vehicle of truth, but it is not a blueprint, and we tend to confuse the two.”
Section 4.5 <!-- p. 202 -->
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
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Madeleine L'Engle223
American writer 1918–2007Related quotes
“A real author gets his best pieces of literature from narrow alleys and dirty houses”
Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist
Hermann Weyl (1885–1955) German mathematician
Symmetry (1952) (quote on p. 138; referring to a letter by Évariste Galois to Auguste Chevalier from May 29, 1832, two days before Galois’ death, containing a testamentary summary of Galois’ discoveries)
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author
"Religion and Literature" (1935), in Essays Ancient and Modern (1936)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic
Hawthorne http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/hjj/nhhj1.html, (1879) ch. I: The Early Years.
“The great standard of literature as to purity and exactness of style is the Bible.”
Hugh Blair (1718–1800) British philosopher
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 386.