Best 5099 quotes in «literature quotes» category

I think that things happen individually first, and then collectively. It's not the other way around.

I think the anti-intellectualism of a lot of contemporary fiction is a kind of despairing of literature's ability to be anything more than perfectly bound blog posts or transcribed sitcoms.

I think there is something about coming to a city to work that puts you in touch with it in a different way.

I think there is a sense of last things in my work that probably comes from a Catholic childhood.

I think the world is full of evil people. I think in some ways we're in more danger now than before.

I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.

It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.

It is better to rust out than wear out.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

It is difficult to disturb the common usage of Korean that is bent to the perspective of a male-oriented society. Korean society is based on both a politics and history that have been disguised as a solid society of solid male poems, a solid written language, fixed rules of how to write literature, and a narrative language.

It is ever the invisible that is the object of our profoundest worship. With the lover it is not the seen but the unseen that he muses upon.

It is fortunate that Literature is in no ways injured by the follies of Collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily defend the good.

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.

It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature.

It is not enough to be well-intentioned; one must strive to put those intentions into action in a capable way. One must consider the effect his actions will have on others. Looked at like this, to persist in ignorance is itself dishonorable

It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others.

It is not sex by itself that interests me, but its particular role in American consciousness, and in my own life.

It is not only my dreams, my belief is that all these dreams are yours as well. The only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate them. And that is what poetry or painting or literature or filmmaking is all about... and it is my duty because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are. We have to articulate ourselves, otherwise we would be cows in the field.

It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.

I think there was a revolution in poetry, associated chiefly with Eliot and Pound; but maybe it is of the nature of revolutions or of the nature of history that their innovations should later come to look trivial or indistinguishable from technical tricks.

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

I thought, frankly, that it would be more pleasant to write a memoir than it was.

I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.

It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can't fly away.

It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature.

It is also said of me that I now and then contradict myself. Yes, I improve wonderfully as time goes on.

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.

It is a mistake to expect good work from expatriates for it is not what they do that matters but what they are not doing.

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.

It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy.

It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of - another Jew?

It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.

It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion.

It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.

It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.

It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature.

It is not my intention to explain Turkey, its culture and its problems. My literature has a universal concern: I want to bring people and their emotions closer to my readers, not explain Turkish politics.