Quotes from book
ABC of Reading

Name: ABC of Reading
Author: Ezra Pound

ABC of Reading is a book by Ezra Pound published in 1934. In it, Pound sets out an approach by which one may come to appreciate and understand literature .

“Literature is news that STAYS news.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading (1934), Ch. 2 (p. 29 in the 1961 paperback)

“Real education must ultimately be limited to one who INSISTS on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading (1934), Ch. 8

“Any general statement is like a cheque drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading (1934), p. 25

“Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading

“Good writers are those who keep the language efficient.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading (1934), Chapter 3
Context: Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.

“The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets literature decay than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading (1934), p. 33

“AT ABOUT THIS POINT the weak-hearted reader usually sits down in the road, removes his shoes and weeps that he 'is a bad linguist' or that he or she can't possibly learn all those languages. One has to divide the readers who want to be experts from those who do not, and divide, as it were, those who want to see the world from those who merely want to know WHAT PART OF IT THEY LIVE IN.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading (1934), p. 42

“The author's conviction on this day of the New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Preface
ABC of Reading (1934)