Best 5099 quotes in «literature quotes» category

writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences - experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed.

Writers rush in where publishers fear to tread and where translators fear to tread

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.

Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.

Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life

Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.

Yeah, but now suddenly - you know, universities are notoriously market oriented, too.

Yeah, Hitman I suppose is most of the time a lighter read than Preacher; it was always going to be.

Yet humanitarianism is not a purely Christian movement any more than it is a purely humanist one

You are no better than you should be.

You are not satisfied unless form is so strictly divorced from content that you can comprehend the one without almost without bothering to read the other.

You can believe in originals only if you just don't know their context within literature. Certainly I believe in originality, but it lies with the teller, not the tale.

You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style.

You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you'd have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.

You can look at the New York Times Bestseller List and you can be pretty sure that the writers on that list don't know each other very well.

You cannot be responsible for salvation until first you've been responsible for sin.

You can plan to be brave - it's even better if you just try to be brave.

You can say that literature is about topics like love, death, and all that, but I think there is only one topic that applies to all literature and that is belonging.

You can see the diversity that pieces in the anthology represent, and then the interconnections-obvious and less obvious-between various stories or between various modes of storytelling. Diversity generates need for conversation, conversation generates common interests, as well as differences. Literature, as a human project, is all about that.

You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.

You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.

You can't change your life. This mode in literature goes against the more middle-brown mode, which is about shaping your destiny, changing it. You can't change it, you just become passive in front of it. Even if we live in a godless universe, there are paths set, there are trajectories, like bumper cars just pulling those trajectories, colliding.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

You can't understand European history at all other than through religion, or English literature either if you can't recognise biblical allusions.

You can tell a man's taste in literature by his judgment in knowing what not to read.

You can travel through literature, and you can expand your mind through literature. It's so cheap to buy that kind of ticket.

You don't know whether he's thought through how this is going to affect the Middle East.

You can, when Time is ripe, swope to your feet - at your full height - at a single gesture. Ready to go where? Why... Wherever God motions.

You don't ever want to say to a young person, You can't, or, You are no good. Some people might be able to do it, but I don't think I am a policeman for literature. So I tell them, Sweat it out, do your best.

You don't say, like the Bush crowd, 'I got this guy over here and I don't like him and I'm gonna get him, whether you back me or not.'

You don't need to invade a place or install a new government to help bring about a positive change.

You don't reward reaction; you reward results.

You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.

You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense.

You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer

You have to make it happen.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she'll be constantly running back.

You must consider the bottom line, but make it integrity before profits.

You must realize that one day you will die. Until then you are worthless.

You never seem to hear about psychic occult attack in spiritual literature. This knowledge has been conveniently forgotten.

You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.

You seek the heights of manhood when you seek the depths of God.

You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play.

You should love literature. You should live in the library. Forget about films.

Your best friend and worst enemy are both in this room right now. It's not your neighbor right or left - and it's not God or the devil - it's you.

You're not getting the joy out of literature that it gave you. This is the danger of what we do. Look at Hemingway and so many others. You devote your life to one thing, that is what you are. It's artificial but it's all you have. If you lose it, then you're nothing and there's no point in going on.

You who love wild passions, flee the holy austerity of my pleasures. All here breathes of God, peace and truth.

A bad conscience makes a very good ghost.