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

—  Romain Gary

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Reality is not an inspiration for literature. At its best, literature is an inspiration for reality." by Romain Gary?
Romain Gary photo
Romain Gary 16
French writer and diplomat 1914–1980

Related quotes

John Cheever photo

“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 (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

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).

Northrop Frye photo

“The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 4: The Keys To Dreamland

Virginia Woolf photo

“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

“He was an admirer of the bullfight, and had once drawn my attention to the fact that only cricket and bullfighting had inspired any appreciable literature.”

Dal Stivens (1911–1997) Australian writer

The Demon Bowler (1979)

William Dean Howells photo

“Christ and the life of Christ is at this moment inspiring the literature of the world as never before, and raising it up a witness against waste and want and war. It may confess Him, as in Tolstoi's work it does, or it may deny Him, but it cannot exclude Him; and in the degree that it ignores His spirit, modern literature is artistically inferior. In other words, all good literature is now Christmas literature.”

William Dean Howells (1837–1920) author, critic and playwright from the United States

In Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Editor's Study Christmas Literature (December 1888), p. 158-59, as quoted in An Imperative Duty, Appendix D, 7

Karl Lagerfeld photo

“Fantasy is often better than reality. It’s much more inspiring not to go to places than to go.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

The Guardian, http://www.psfk.com/2011/12/karl-lagerfeld-launches-his-first-india-collection-with-an-alice-in-wonderland-style-tea-party.html 12 December 2011

Gino Severini photo

“The metaphysical forms which compose our futurist pictures are the result of realities conceived and realities created entirely by the artist. These last are inspired by the emotion or intuition and dependent on atmosphere-ambience.”

Gino Severini (1883–1966) Italian painter

Quote of Severine 1913, from the opening paragraphs of his text 'Art du fantastique dans le sacre', as cited in Gino Severini Ecrits sur l'art, (1913-1962), with a preface by Serge Fauchereau, (Paris: Editions Cercle d'Art, 1987), p. 47
Severini opens 'Art du fantastique' with a theoretical explanation of the concept, form and content of a Futurist work

Amos Oz photo

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

Amos Oz (1939–2018) Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual

“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

"Fictions of Every Kind" in Books and Bookmen (February 1971)

“Plot involves fragmentary reality, and it might involve composite reality. Fragmentary reality is the view of the individual. Composite reality is the community or state view. Fragmentary reality is always set against composite reality. Virginia Woolf did this by creating fragmentary monologues and for a while this was all the rage in literature. She was a genius. In the hands of the merely talented it came off like gibberish.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Starting from Scratch (1989)

Related topics