Top 585 Literature Quotes

Life develops, changes, is in motion. The forms of literature are not.

A good story, just like a good sentence, does more than one job at once. That’s what literature is: a story that does more than tell a story, a story that manages to reflect in some way the multilayered texture of life itself.

Gender consciousness has become involved in almost every intellectual field: history, literature, science, anthropology. There’s been an extraordinary advance.

More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature.

When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced.

I knew I had to write about Canada. I just could not find in literature any examples of the immigrant experience that I’ve had.

Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature.

Literature has become my life.

If you read literature, you put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. You learn from great figures in literature.

In the same period, Polish literature also underwent some significant changes. From social-political literature, which had a great tradition and strong motivation to be that way, Polish literature changed its focus to a psychological rather than a social one.

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern.

In literature classes, you don’t learn about genes; in physics classes you don’t learn about human evolution. So you get a fragmented view of the world. That makes it hard to find meaning in education.

One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety.

Because my dad’s Chinese-American, and they’re very concrete, he said, ‘There’s no money to be made in literature.’ So he told me to go into the sciences. And I was a good girl. And I did what Daddy said. And that’s how I ended up being a doctor. But you know, you just can’t stamp out that desire to tell stories.

The problem with literature, with writing, is that it works sometimes in terms of correction of social ills. Other times, it just does not suffice.

Chinatown is tremendously interesting… It’s a part of the city that hasn’t really been explored in crime literature or in any general literature. It’s as though Chinatown didn’t exist. People write about New York without mentioning Chinatown at all.

I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper – whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.

A large body of literature suggests that wellbeing is intimately linked to attachment – not only to other people, but also to the natural world.

I was a big reader as a child. My father is a great book lover and a librarian, but he forbid me to read bad literature. I was not allowed to read Nancy Drew or books like that. I often say to him that me becoming a crime author is both a way of pleasing him and annoying him.

Most of the famous love affairs of literature or film were quite short. What was ‘Romeo & Juliet’? How long were they together? A few days.

I’m not into high literature, but I think all my books are literate.

Once I got into college, I discovered literature – in particular, multicultural literature. I just started to understand the power of story and narrative, and you know, like anyone else, I kind of wanted to do it, too.

The road that led me to literature was very different from the one followed by my fellow writers in Poland.

I can’t speak for readers in general, but personally I like to read stories behind which there is some truth, something real and above all, something emotional. I don’t like to read essays on literature; I don’t like to read critical or rational or impersonal or cold disquisitions on subjects.

Some people might be surprised that ‘Rambo’s creator has a doctorate in American literature. One of my influences is Henry James, whose major theme is awareness. Whether I’m writing about military personnel, law enforcement, or De Quincey, the persistent theme is paying attention in a hostile world.

Intimate relationships are a gold mine for literature to explore, to understand, to describe.

I don’t teach literature from my perspective as ‘Joyce Carol Oates.’ I try to teach fiction from the perspective of each writer. If I’m teaching a story by Hemingway, my endeavor is to present the story that Hemingway wrote in its fullest realization.

I think you can find all the elements that you can find in great literature in mundane experiences.

Remarks are not literature.

Before college, I hadn’t voluntarily read anything that might be called literature; I didn’t think I’d understand it; I never seemed to understand my English teacher’s interpretations of what we read.

Seeds and nuts are indispensable for cardiovascular health. The protective properties of nuts against coronary heart disease were first recognized in the early 1990s, and a strong body of literature has followed, confirming these original findings.

I would say ‘The Chill’ by Ross Macdonald is sort of a prototypical example of how the private detective genre elevates itself to the level of literature.

Because I don’t have to be careful of people’s feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I’m teaching writing.

Art and literature are my surrogate religions.

As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature.

Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated.

Literature has to serve as a moral control of politics.

What fascinated me mostly about Mickey Cohen was that he, in his later years, hired someone to help him to comprehend literature, to help him to read better, to understand words better.

Comics? Honestly, that’s more a matter of nostalgia for me. I think most of that energy has gone to my love of literature and my love of film.

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual – when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions – it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.

I think the class divide is going to change. I think a lot more working class people are going to get published. It is really class ridden, literature.

I did not go to any creative writing workshop; I did not major in literature. If I can write, anyone can write. All it needs is imagination.

I suppose it’s true that most great television, literature, and other forms of high art (and basic cable) benefit from a little hindsight. ‘M.A.S.H.’ comes to mind. So does ‘The Iliad.’

My master’s degree was in English literature.

Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble vehicle, the ‘bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very peculiar.

There’s always a host of voices you’re inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He’s one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens.

The death of dictator Kim Jong-Il has cast all eyes on North Korea, a country without literature or freedom or truth.

Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.

The cinema, as literature, as all the plastic arts, do not exist outside of a critical system that allows us to study them.

Language as a communication tool is the primary element from which literature is created. Even in pre-literate societies, it exists as songs, riddles, or epics that are chanted.

There is a broad cultural current that conveys the idea that a film is like a football team, it represents a nation, it is illustrated literature, filmed radio. These are outdated concepts, totally out of touch with today’s realities.

Ever since childhood, I’ve been interested in history and myth. Not just the facts and figures of the past, but everything that contributes to shape our perception of an age: architecture, art, literature and so forth.

Some people think memoirs should be held to a perfect journalistic standard. Some people don’t. Obviously I don’t. My goal was never to create or to write a perfect journalistic standard of my life. It was always to be as literature.

The knowledge of languages was very useful. I have a university degree in foreign languages and literature.

As I grew up, I was interested in other areas, too, especially literature. It became a major love of mine. Later, it became a difficult choice for me as to whether to major in music or literature. It wasn’t until my 30s that I began a profession in music.