Literature Quotes - Page 14

Bob, I am grateful for yourThree letter name.It's another reminder of homeOf a world predictableOf a life I had.

You stand for what is right-for the patient and the staff.Pressures of work may down you,maybe bent but not broken.

Haris...as a naive migrantwho just moved here,relying on you tapered worries.

LatelyI’ve been dreaming about youAbout usSharing our secretsTalking, even if we arguedKept talking, till we sleptMaybe I woke upOn the wrong side of bedMaybe I thought about youJust a little too much

You see the world in colors,I see in Black and Red.

I grow weary of the loveThat lasts for a nightWhen it should be thereThe next sunrise

The whole world's writing novels, but nobody's reading them. We need readers. More readers. Fewer writers.

Robert Galbraith

I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man , certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words; and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases.

Leonardo da Vinci

When my words are concealedWith lies and disguises, truth and beyondInsecurities in the veil of trustBetrayal in bounds of liesIt’s just the charm of words darlingGiving the illusion of happiness inside misery

Books had taught me new ideas and had shown me ways of life that I would not have known about otherwise, and they offered a refuge when, like now, real life seemed too hard.

Imagine that the genome is a book.There are twenty-three chapters, called CHROMOSOMES.Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called GENES.Each story is made up of paragraphs, called EXTONS, which are interrupted by advertisements called INTRONS.Each paragraph is made up of words, called CODONS.Each word is written in letters called BASES.

I think genre rules should be porous, if not nonexistent.

Of course, that’s one of the dreams of modernist literature, whether realist or fantastic: that the more stories we tell each other about such tragedies, the fewer of them there will be. We’re still waiting for the results.

In general, when a novel manipulates its material to conform to the pieties of the day, or alternatively to attack those pieties for no other reason than the visibility such an attack will generate, when its literary tropes are all too familiar, its clever prose reminiscent of other clever prose, then the compass needle is slipping away from true north . . . When, on the other hand, the author renounces some easy twist, some expected payoff, to take us into territory we didn’t expect but that nevertheless fits with the drift of the story, then the novel gains force and conviction. And when he or she does it again, telling quite a different story that is nevertheless driven by the same urgent tensions, then we are likely moving into the zone of authenticity.

Tim Parks

An unhappy ending makes it literature rather than romantic fiction.

Victoria Clayton

In classrooms and living rooms across the globe, an agnostic or an atheist may be heard to strenuously argue, 'But the Bible is just a book.' Similar arguments may be raised against other holy books. But they all are too ironic, by half. A book is the Bible.

Apart from such chaotic classics as these, my own taste in novel reading is one which I am prepared in a rather especial manner, not only to declare, but to defend. My taste is for the sensational novel, the detective story, the story about death, robbery and secret societies; a taste which I share in common with the bulk at least of the male population of this world. There was a time in my own melodramatic boyhood when I became quite fastidious in this respect. I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was. But we all lose a little of that fine edge of austerity and idealism which sharpened our spiritual standard in our youth. I have come to compromise with the tea-table and to be less insistent about the sofa. As long as a corpse or two turns up in the second, the third, nay even the fourth or fifth chapter, I make allowance for human weakness, and I ask no more. But a novel without any death in it is still to me a novel without any life in it. I admit that the very best of the tea-table novels are great art - for instance, Emma or Northanger Abbey. Sheer elemental genius can make a work of art out of anything. Michelangelo might make a statue out of mud, and Jane Austen could make a novel out of tea - that much more contemptible substance. But on the whole I think that a tale about one man killing another man is more likely to have something in it than a tale in which, all the characters are talking trivialities without any of that instant and silent presence of death which is one of the strong spiritual bonds of all mankind. I still prefer the novel in which one person does another person to death to the novel in which all the persons are feebly (and vainly) trying to get the others to come to life.

G.K. Chesterton

But whatever the exact psychology of the process {receiving recognition or literary success}, the present has a way of contaminating the past. And the writing will change accordingly. Turmoil and dilemma once experienced with a certain desperation may be seen more complacently as the writer reflects that through expressing them he has realized his inevitable and well-deserved triumph. The lean years of patient toil when no one paid attention may even begin to seem preferable to the present. The very thing you created in the heat of fierce concentration has destroyed the circumstances that made it possible. The writer is devoured along with his books.

Tim Parks

Anything that keeps old words in circulation is to be treasured, the French revolution be damned.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. It does much more than that, it tells us the truth about its readers; and, oddly enough, it tells us this all the more the more cynical and immoral be the motive of its manufacture.

G.K. Chesterton

It was his wedding day, and then it was any day; it was nothing, and then it was forever.

A chronic poet should always be an inveterate nature-lover.

InsomniaI wonderIf those talks matterFew done in the clarity of dayOr the manyDone at 3 a.m. in the morning

Vladimir Nabokov“... one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do no have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous achievement of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is - a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed) - a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.” ― Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature

Vladimir Nabokov

Give at least fifteen minutes everyday to reading. Sometimes, we spend a lot of time watching television - surfing through channels; not really watching anything in particular. Fifteen minutes out of that time is not a big deal. Soon you will find yourself reading for more than fifteen minutes. Soon you will find yourself turning to a book when you need to relax. Soon you will realize that reading a book heals you in a way you never imagined possible.

A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist. Already there are countless people who would think it scandalous to falsify a scientific textbook, but would see nothing wrong in falsifying an historical fact. It is at the point where literature and politics cross that totalitarianism exerts its greatest pressure on the intellectual. The exact sciences are not, at this date, menaced to anything like the same extent. This partly accounts for the fact that in all countries it is easier for the scientists than for the writers to line up behind their respective governments.

You will die but the words you speak or spoke, will live forever.

Auliq-Ice

The authentic answer is always the question’s vitality. It can close in around the question, but it does so in order to preserve the question by keeping it open.

Maurice Blanchot

... endowing the imperfect and the preterite with all the sweetness which there is in generosity, all the melancholy which there is in love; guided the sentence that was drawing to an end towards that which was waiting to begin, now hastening, now slackening the pace of the syllables so as to bring them, despite their difference in quantity, into a uniform rhythm, and breathed into this quite ordinary prose a kind of life, continuous and full of feeling.

The first one to bed always lit the candle, and the last one turned out the lamp....The tradition had seen them through quite a bit by now, and Rebecca had come to love the candlelight, not only because it meant that Mike loved to see her just the way she was, which was incredibly liberating once you began to actually believe it, but also because the light just felt holy to her. It made the end of the day into a kind of prayer, whether they made love or just lay in each other's arms and chewed over the day's portion of craziness; and there was that beautiful little puff of "Amen" when they blew the candle out and settled into sleep.

Half of all the great art and literature in existence went unrecognised during the lifetimes of its creators.

Alastair Reynolds

I think of literature - she wrote - as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but cannot possibly reach. And I have started too late. I will never catch up.

What is so special about a title? The mode and significance of titles have changed with the change in the lyrical traditions. So these transitions in style and the art of signification are all collective. What has never changed is the author's intentionality in entitling his works. The art of giving a title to a piece of work is entirely conscious. The author chooses, exercises his will in giving a title to his work.

Anuradha Bhattacharyya

Literature is impossible, in exactly this sense: every new generation has so much 'catching up' to do that the real choice that presents itself soon is the following one: one either spends ones entire life just reading all the classics, or one pretends to be 'contemporary and hip' and never reads any of the classics because in order to pretend to be contemporary one has to at least superficially read the works of contemporaries. Hence the dilemma: one either does not care about being fashionable, or one is fashionable and just learns to mimic some knowledge about the classics. As time develops this rift just becomes bigger, because the amount of books written grows and grows to insane proportions. Conclusion: one can only be hip in the future if one does not read at all, which is a phenomenon I am already witnessing in the media.

Martijn Benders

If literature matters today, it is chiefly because it seems to many conventional critics one of the few remaining places where, in a divided, fragmented world, a sense of universal value may still be incarnate; and where, in a sordidly material world, a rare glimpse of transcendence can still be attained.

The topic was eloquence, something Christians had been conflicted about since the first-century church when Paul wrote that in bringing the gospel, he did not come with “eloquence.” A few centuries later, Saint Augustine wrestled with the value of eloquence, associating it with his pagan background and training in Greek rhetoric while simultaneously employing it winsomely in his Christian writings. Such suspicion of beauty and form, whether in art, literature, speech, or human flesh, has shadowed Christian thought throughout the history of the church; sadly so, considering God is the author of all beauty.

Karen Swallow Prior

In your opinion, where do private and political life, personal history and History meet? You know the answer, Maya. You say it unhesitatingly - in art and literature.

Abdourahman A. Waberi

The curious fact is that biology tells us nothing about desire. And, when you think about it, culture -- novels, movies, opera, and quite a lot of painting -- is about desire, how we manage desire, how we suffer from it, and how it brings us joy when we get things right. A story without desire -- and that means without the insistence of desire -- will be empty, dry, and more or less aimless. That is one reason we read novels, to see how people fall into awkward moral situations and then try to extricate themselves. This is why there is so much anguish in the world: frustrated desire is every bit as miserable as poverty, because desire is no respecter of one’s position in life: everyone goes through it.

The African continent has so many stories to tell, it's about time they are told, by them - not us.

Akilnathan Logeswaran

Maybe its because i rejoice over what i have and don't grieve over what i don't have".

Children’s and YA books are about being brave and kind, about learning wisdom and love, about that journey into and through maturity that we all keep starting, and starting again, no matter how old we get. I think that’s why so many adults read YA: we’re never done coming of age.

Dear Natasha,It's the middle of the night. I can't sleep. Thoughts are creeping through my head like darkness slips around the bodies of sky scrapers in every city we've ever been to. From the bottom up, suffocating the life on the street first and then raising to the head and the brain, circling into smog and clouds until the black stretches up so high that nobody can even remember what the stars used to look like.This is how I feel when I lie awake and think of you. I miss you.

This is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

F.Scott Fitzgerlad

The night I sat down to read Dostoievski for the first time was a most important event in my life, even more important than my first love. It was the first deliberate, conscious act which had significance for me; it changed the whole face of the world. Whether it is true that the clock stopped that moment when I looked up after the first deep gulp I don't know any more. But the world stopped dead for a moment, that I know. It was my first glimpse into the soul of a man, or shall I say simply that Dostoievski was the first man to reveal his soul to me?"Henry Miller

Henry Miller Shreve

If you can put your five fingers throught it, it is a gate, if not a door.

All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self.... What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself — a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required.... I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.

A dark horse riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winning post, his mane moonflowing, his eyeballs stars.

Literary works are not democracies. We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. We may, but the country of Novels, Etc., doesn't. In that faraway place, no character is created equal. One or two of them get all the breaks; the rest exist to get them to the finish line.

Thomas C. Foster

There comes a hush between darkness and day.Like expectation of a caress.A murmur of silence. Tree crests peeked down at Paulette through slowly lifting fog. Bark felt around for its texture again. Morning gathered and drifted through mere hints; through vague hopeful nuances of ‘Just maybe’.- From "The Gardens of Ailana" handbook for healers & mystics

The growth of the imagination demands windows-windows through which we can look out at the world and windows through which we can look into ourselves. The old stories were windows in just this way.

Katherine Paterson

This heart is a hurricane, turbulent with ache screaming winds of grief waiting to make the skyfall, to pluck the cloudsfrom their beds with itswhipping winds

Jack Southfield

I carry my liberty with me. It is in my thoughts, in my head. Shakespeare is one of my countries, Goethe another. You can change that badge that I wear, but you can’t change the way I think. It is through my intellect that I can escape the roles, intrusions, and obligations with which every civilisation, every community would burden me. I make myself my own homeland through my affinities, my choices, my ideas, and no one can take it away from me – I may even be able to enlarge it. I don’t spend my life in the company of crowds but individuals. If I could pick fifty individuals from each nation, then perhaps I could put together a society I’d be happy with. My first possession is myself; better to sent it into exile than to lose it, to change a few habits rather than terminate my role as a human being. We only have one homeland: the world.

Gabriel Chevallier

The world of books, the greatest possessions.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Decades after little Colleen’s death, my sister Kathy still loves her daughter dearly. Colleen was born with cerebral palsy. She died in Kath’s arms in a rocking chair at the age of six. They were listening to a music box that looked very much like a smiling pink bunny.The opening quote in this book, “I will love you forever, but I’ll only miss you for the rest of my life,” is from Kath’s nightly prayers to her child.Colleen couldn’t really talk or walk very well, but loved untying my mother’s tennis shoes and then laughing. When Mom died decades later we sent her off in tennis shoes so Colleen would have something to untie in Heaven.In the meantime, Dad had probably been taking really good care of her up there. He must have been aching to hug her for all of her six years on earth.Mom’s spirit comes back to play with great grandchildren she’d never met or had a chance to love while she was still – I almost said “among the living.” In my family, though, the dead don’t always stay that way. You can be among the living without technically being alive. Mom comes back to play, but Dad shows up only in emergencies. They are both watching over their loved ones.“The Mourning After” is dedicated to all those we have had the joy of loving before they’ve slipped away to the other side.It then celebrates the joy of re-unions.

If we didn't read people who were bastards, we'd never read anything. Even the best of us are at least part-time bastards.

Mary Karr

I have not tried to write the history of that language, but rather the archaeology of that silence.

Michel Foucault

The day is short, the labor vast, the toilers idle, the reward great, and the Master urgent.

Tarphon

For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.

Don't bother looking for the meaning of it all. There isn't one.Maybe not, but life compulsively dangled the possibility. Life, the dramatist on speed. Life, that couldn't stop with its foreshadows and ironies and symbols and clues, its wretched jokes and false endings and twists. Life with its hopeless addiction to plot.

I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many times we reopen 'King Lear,' never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them.

Vladimir Nabokov

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