Best 5099 quotes in «literature quotes» category

Most people are afflicted with an inability to say what they see or think. They say there’s nothing more difficult than to define a spiral in words; they claim it is necessary to use the unliterary hand, twirling it in a steadily upward direction, so that human eyes will perceive the abstract figure immanent in wire spring and a certain type of staircase. But if we remember that to say is to renew, we will have no trouble defining a spiral; it’s a circle that rises without ever closing. I realize that most people would never dare to define it this way, for they suppose that defining is to say what others want us to say rather than what’s required for the definition. I’ll say it more accurately: a spiral is a potential circle that winds round as it rises, without ever completing itself. But no, the definition is still abstract. I’ll resort to the concrete, and all will become clear: a spiral is a snake without a snake, vertically wound around nothing. All literature is an attempt to make life real. All of us know, even when we act on what we don’t know, life is absolutely unreal in its directly real form; the country, the city and our ideas are absolutely fictitious things, the offspring of our complex sensation of our own selves. Impressions are incommunicable unless we make them literary. Children are particularly literary, for they say what they feel not what someone has taught them to feel. Once I heard a child, who wished to say that he was on the verge of tears, say not ‘I feel like crying’, which is what an adult, i.e., an idiot, would say but rather, ’ I feel like tears.’ And this phrase -so literary it would seem affected in a well-known poet, if he could ever invent it - decisively refers to the warm presence of tears about to burst from eyelids that feel the liquid bitterness. ‘I feel like tears’! The small child aptly defined his spiral. To say! To know how to say! To know how to exist via the written voice and the intellectual image! This is all that matters in life; the rest is men and women, imagined loves and factitious vanities, the wiles of our digestion and forgetfulness, people squirming- like worms when a rock is lifted - under the huge abstract boulder of the meaningless blue sky.

Mother made sure her little kids were subjected to a strict routine. We were given a timetable which covered our every waking moment, copies of which were posted by our bedside, in the sitting room and in the kitchen. Story hour meant that mother would read us novels and short stories by Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde and Edmondo de Amicis. Soon we graduated to Tolstoy, Gogol and Turgenev. She read them to us in Chinese and I never realised until much later that the writers wrote them in different European languages. Comics were absolutely forbidden and so were Enid Blyton adventures and pop music. . .Lee Cyn and I soon went to a primary school nearby. . .After mother’s rigorous timetable, school became fun and easy-going.

Mrs. Bulstrode's naïve way of conciliating piety and worldliness, the nothingness of this life and desirability of cut glass, the consciousness at once of filthy rags and the best damask...

Mr. Herbert Demarest Alexander Hamilton Jr. High 2236 Bedford Avenue Brooklyn NY Dear Mr Demarest, Then why don't you give him 'Withering Heights'? At least Heathcoat knew how to kick some ass. Chas. Banks 3d Base

Music , literature with poetry makes a perfect paradise.

My beloved isn't dazzling light, Darkness is my beloved – The reason I'm so fond of her…

My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger" - Billy Connolly

My dis-interest in what people speak of as "women's problems," "women's literature." Have women a special sensibility? No. There are individuals uniquely talented & uniquely equipped to interpret the complex symbolism of the world but they are certainly not determined by gender. The very idea is astonishing. [...] Energy, talent, vision, insight, compassion, the ability to stay with a single work for long periods of time, the ability to be faithful (to both one's writing and one's beloved)--these have nothing to do with gender. [...] The sensibility of a Virginia Woolf, for instance. It's her own, it's uniquely hers. Not because she is a "female" but because she is, or was, Virginia Woolf. Not more sensitive than Henry James or Proust or James Joyce, consequently not more "feminine" in the narrow & misleading sense people use that term today....But then I suppose critics must have something to write about. [...]

My fingers burn behind the keys of my typewriter, the lettering fading with every thoughtful strike. The many words I write I dare not stall; my mind perpetually alert for my magnum opus call.

My grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime.I've never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.

My heart was full and uplifted; it seemed that in my soul the question arose whether such things as Art, literature, science encompassed and completed life or whether there was still something in the distance which encompassed it even more completely and filled it with a far greater happiness.

My ideas would burn barbarian stars, topple sectarian gods and raise up empires of liberty and truth.

My life had got on the wrong track, and my contact with men had become now a mere soliloquy. I had fallen so low that, if I had had to choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, I should have chosen the book.

My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.

My love of literature has always sustained me; more than alcohol, drugs, psychiatry and medication ever have or will.

My thoughts about pornography tend to revolve around the fact that while very few of us are zombies, detectives, cowboys, or spacemen, there are an infinite number of books that are recounting the stories of those lifestyles. However, all of us have some sort of feelings or opinions about sex. And yet the only art form which in any way is able to discuss sex, or depict sex, is this grubby despised under the counter art form, which has absolutely no standards. This was what Lost Girls was intended as a remedy for, that there is no reason why a horny piece of literature, that is purely about sex, could not be as beautiful, as meaningful, and have as absorbing characters as any other piece of fiction.

myths reflect centuries of oral tradition in non-literate as well as literate peoples – when it comes to the supernatural, there's no beating folklore.” - Breena Malloy from Bitter Frost by Kailin Gow

Nabokov calls every great novel a fairy tale, I said. Well, I would agree. First, let me remind you that fairy tales abound with frightening witches who eat children and wicked stepmothers who poison their beautiful stepdaughters and weak fathers who leave their children behind in forests. But the magic comes from the power of good, that force which tells us we need not give in to the limitations and restrictions imposed on us by McFate, as Nabokov called it. Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies. In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance.

Nature is an outcry, unpolished truth; the art—a euphemism—tamed wilderness.

Never run upstairs when someone’s chasing you. Don’t try to quick-draw a man who already has his gun out. Never light a match in the dark in a strange building. Half of staying safe is just keeping your head and being prudent.

Neither alive nor dead; No one lets up, No one wins.

Never stop dreaming, Never get satisfied, Make you goals bigger, every-time you reach them. Be more then you were, every day.

Nevertheless, the potential and actual importance of fantastic literature lies in such psychic links: what appears to be the result of an overweening imagination, boldly and arbitrarily defying the laws of time, space and ordered causality, is closely connected with, and structured by, the categories of the subconscious, the inner impulses of man's nature. At first glance the scope of fantastic literature, free as it is from the restrictions of natural law, appears to be unlimited. A closer look, however, will show that a few dominant themes and motifs constantly recur: deals with the Devil; returns from the grave for revenge or atonement; invisible creatures; vampires; werewolves; golems; animated puppets or automatons; witchcraft and sorcery; human organs operating as separate entities, and so on. Fantastic literature is a kind of fiction that always leads us back to ourselves, however exotic the presentation; and the objects and events, however bizarre they seem, are simply externalizations of inner psychic states. This may often be mere mummery, but on occasion it seems to touch the heart in its inmost depths and become great literature.

New Rome will be destroyed By the attacks of new vandals. God always remains silent.

Night’s visions of tranquility slowly rolled above me by the groovy silken silence,that prevailed wisdom and by my casement,the starry beams rave,and thoughts start to sketch Nyx’s beauty, as I admired.

Negative prophecies are reversible. The Lord reveals to conquer. You are created to reverse any negative with your prayers and the word of God.

Never fade into your life, Never stop imagining, Never give up on your dreams, You only fail, when you think you have failed.

Never try to outgrow the people who were helping you walk, when you could not even walk.

Ne zaman senden beklenenin sınırına gelsen karşına aynı sorun çıkar – kendin olma sorunu! Bu yönde attığın ilk adımla artı ya da eksi diye bir şey olmadığını idrak eder, patenleri fırlatıp yüzmeye başlarsın. Acı diye bir şey yoktur artık çünkü güvenliğini tehdit edecek bir şey kalmamıştır. Başkalarına yardım etme isteği bile duymazsın – hak etmeleri gereken bir ayrıcalıktan neden mahrum edesin onları? Yaşam muazzam bir sonsuzlukla andan âna esner durur. Hiçbir şey, düşlediğinden daha gerçek olamaz. Evren sen ne olduğunu sanıyorsan odur; sen, sen ve ben de ben olduğumuz sürece başka bir şey olmasına olanak yoktur. Eylemlerinin meyvelerinde yaşarsın. Eylemlerin düşüncelerinin haşatıdır. Düşünce ve eylem birdir çünkü onun içinde yüzersin. Olmasını arzuladığın her şeydir, ne eksik ne fazla. Sonsuzlukta her kulacın değeri vardır. Isıtma ve soğutma tek sistemdir. Oğlak Dönencesi ile Yengeç Dönencesi birbirlerinden sadece hayali bir çizgiyle ayrılır.

Noble literature lasts for centuries; every ambitious writer aims for that. When a writer's words kept preserved for generation after generation, it is proof that what he or she wrote left a positive impact on humanity. If you are a writer keep that in mind, your words may last after your death, so ask yourself: Am I leaving what is worth to be read over and over again? Make this your compass.

No days, perhaps, of all our childhood are ever so fully lived are those that we had regarded as not being lived at all: days spent wholly with a favourite book.

No es que escribir me produzca un gran placer, pero es mucho peor si no lo hago.

No, I am not imagining a book-burning, warmongering, anti-intellectual fascist regime – in my plan, there is no place for re ghters who light up the Homers and Lady Murasakis and Cao Xueqins stashed under your bed – because, for starters, I’m not banning literature per se. I’m banning the reading of literature. Purchasing and collecting books and other forms of literature remains perfectly legitimate as long as you don’t peruse the literature at hand.

No institution of learning of Ingersoll's day had courage enough to confer upon him an honorary degree; not only for his own intellectual accomplishments, but also for his influence upon the minds of the learned men and women of his time and generation. Robert G. Ingersoll never received a prize for literature. The same prejudice and bigotry which prevented his getting an honorary college degree, militated against his being recognized as 'the greatest writer of the English language on the face of the earth,' as Henry Ward Beecher characterized him. Aye, in all the history of literature, Robert G. Ingersoll has never been excelled -- except by only one man, and that man was -- William Shakespeare. And yet there are times when Ingersoll even surpassed the immortal Bard. Yes, there are times when Ingersoll excelled even Shakespeare, in expressing human emotions, and in the use of language to express a thought, or to paint a picture. I say this fully conscious of my own admiration for that 'intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought.' Ingersoll was perfection himself. Every word was properly used. Every sentence was perfectly formed. Every noun, every verb and every object was in its proper place. Every punctuation mark, every comma, every semicolon, and every period was expertly placed to separate and balance each sentence. To read Ingersoll, it seems that every idea came properly clothed from his brain. Something rare indeed in the history of man's use of language in the expression of his thoughts. Every thought came from his brain with all the beauty and perfection of the full blown rose, with the velvety petals delicately touching each other. Thoughts of diamonds and pearls, rubies and sapphires rolled off his tongue as if from an inexhaustible mine of precious stones. Just as the cut of the diamond reveals the splendor of its brilliance, so the words and construction of the sentences gave a charm and beauty and eloquence to Ingersoll's thoughts. Ingersoll had everything: The song of the skylark; the tenderness of the dove; the hiss of the snake; the bite of the tiger; the strength of the lion; and perhaps more significant was the fact that he used each of these qualities and attributes, in their proper place, and at their proper time. He knew when to embrace with the tenderness of affection, and to resist and denounce wickedness and tyranny with that power of denunciation which he, and he alone, knew how to express.

No kind of writing lodges itself so deeply in our memory, echoing there for the rest of our lives, as the books that we met in our childhood.

No matter how strong you are, you cannot hold open the jaws of a great-white shark with your bare hands... that can do your brain.

Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do,' Arkadian Porpirych says. 'What statistic allows one to identify the nations where literature enjoys true consideration better than the sums appropriated for controlling it and suppressing it? Where it is the object of such attentions, literature gains an extraordinary authority, inconceivable in countries where it is allowed to vegetate as an innocuous pastime, without risks.

No hay ejercicio intelectual que no sea finalmente inútil. Una doctrina filosófica es al principio una descripción verosímil del universo; giran los años y es un mero capítulo -cuando no un párrafo o un nombre- de la historia de la filosofía. En la literatura, esa caducidad final es aun más notoria. El Quijote -me dijo Menard -fue ante todo un libro agradable; ahora es una ocasión de brindis patrióticos, de soberbia gramatical, de obscenas ediciones de lujo. La gloria es una incomprensión y quizá la peor.

No man's advice can change you unless you speak to yourself. Bible school or seminars can't change you, going to church can't change you except you decide to change. Psalm 139:23 - 24

Nor is the limitation of what is sayable a limit to the doable: this last is the possibility of literature.

No one lives long in a war.

No te lamentes sobre el pasado, Ya se ha ido! No te preocupes por el futuro, Quizás, nunca llegará! Viva el presente Disfruta cada instante!

No se piensa en nada; las horas pasan. Uno se pasea inmovil por paises que cree ver, y su pensamiento, enlazandose a la ficcion, se recrea en los detalles o sigue el hilo de las aventuras. Se identifica con los personajes; parece que somos nosotros mismos los que participamos bajo sus pieles.

No satan can unsettle what God has settled.

Nota dell'autrice: Lo stesso si può dire naturalmente di molte opere qui citate. Non si denuncerà mai abbastanza il fatto che libri rari, esauriti, trovabili soltanto sugli scaffali di qualche biblioteca, o articoli pubblicati su vecchi numeri di riviste di alta cultura, per l'immensa maggioranza del pubblico sono totalmente inaccessibili. Novantanove volte su cento, il lettore desideroso di apprendere, ma a corto di tempo e privo delle poche nozioni tecniche familiari all'erudito di professione, resta - volente o nolente - alla mercè di opere divulgative, scelte più o meno a caso; di queste, a loro volta, le più pregevoli, non sempre ristampate, diventano introvabili. Quella che noi chiamiamo «la nostra cultura», è più di quel che si creda una cultura per iniziati.

Nothing is part of everything.

Nothing is inanimate; what is the rest is our interpretation.

Not writing is never an option. This is not words of advice. It's just literally never an option!

Now and then there are readings that make the hairs on the neck, the non-existent pelt, stand on end and tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the dark—readings when the knowledge that we shall know the writing differently or better or satisfactorily, runs ahead of any capacity to say what we know, or how. In these readings, a sense that the text has appeared to be wholly new, never before seen, is followed, almost immediately, by the sense that it was always there, that we the readers, knew it was always there, and have always known it was as it was, though we have now for the first time recognised, become fully cognisant of, our knowledge.

No writing is good enough until you, as an author, make a small contribution, the size of a drop, into the ocean of the world’s literature.