Best 5099 quotes in «literature quotes» category

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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, 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.

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

No satan can unsettle what God has settled.

No one lives long in a war.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

Nothing is part of everything.

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

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.

Now, Max, I have told you many times that you are my publisher, and permanently, as far as one can fling about the word in this too mutable world....The idea of leaving you has never for one single moment entered my head.

Now what I like about lit is that though you feel you know the characters involved, you don’t – you get all the benefits of having a relationship, with none of the mess.

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.

Now that we are all so smart, we don’t easily find resolutions.

Now we’re guests in a faraway land nearly 40 years on. No trees, no cool breeze, no best friends. Only endless days spent in sending SMSs...

Occasionally a car swooshed by in the rain and its headlights would swing round momentarily and illuminate the room-the pool table, snowshoes on the wall and the rowing machine, the armchair in which Henry sat, motionless, a glass in his hand and the cigarette burning low between his fingers. For a moment his face, pale and watchful as a ghost's, would be caught in the headlights and then, very gradually, it would slide back into the dark.

Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper. Over the last few years, writing a novel on tight finances, I came to appreciate the enormous differences in the material demands between poetry and prose. As we reclaim our literature, poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class, and Colored women. A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time.

Of Books and Scribes there are no end: This Plague--and who can doubt it? Dismays me so, I've sadly penned Another book about it.

Of course, they were other things too. Sometimes they were even everything all together, but not fame, which was rooted in delusion and lies, if not ambition. Also, fame was reductive. Everything that ended in fame and everything that issued from fame was inevitably diminished. Fame's message was unadorned. Fame and literature were irreconcilable enemies.

Often it’s hard to differ pain and joy, Some give up on differentiating

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.

O, great wise man,' she said, 'I have been wondering so many things. Is life more than sitting at home doing the same thing over and over? Wise man, is life more than watching one's relatives do unpleasant things, or more than grim tasks one must perform at school and at work? Is life more than being entertained by literature, wise man, or more than traveling from one place to another, suffering from poor emotional health and pondering the people one loves? And what about those who lead a life of mystery? And the mysteries of life? And, wise man, what about the overall feeling of doom that one cannot ever escape no matter what one does, and miscellaneous things that I have neglected to mention in specific?

Oft times I write with my own blood in pain,a quick release of freedom to express well,the woes of past and present by views train;while my fancies unbar from my soul’s hall.

[...] og at han la særlig vekt på å gjennomgå Ibsens dramaer med sine elever, da var det den andre kunne si: Ja, Ibsen, ja, han ligger nok for høyt for meg, eller: Nei, du vet, jeg har aldri kommet til å interessere meg for litteratur, og i dette lå det en beklagelse, og den var ikke deres egen, for de var jo så lite interessert i litteratur og Ibsens dramaer at de ikke så noen grunn til å beklage det, hva i himmelens navn var det de skulle beklage, for sin egen del? Nei, det var som samfunnsmennesker de fant det nødvendig å uttrykk denne beklagelse, altså beklagelse som et nødvendig uttrykk for den dannelse ethvert sivilisert samfunn søker å gi sine borgere, og som det, som man ser, i dette tilfellet hadde lykkes med. At enkle samtaler mellom gamle kjente som tilfeldigvis treffes etter noen år, arter seg slik, og ikke på stikk motsatt vis, på dette bygger et hvert sivilisert samfunn sine fundamenter, hadde han ofte tenkt, ikke minst i de siste åra.

¡Oh don Quijote dichoso! ¡Oh Dulcinea famosa! ¡Oh Sancho Panza gracioso! Todos juntos y cada uno de por sí viváis siglos infinitos, para gusto y general pasatiempo de los vivientes.

Oh, what can you do with a man like that? What can you do? How can you dissuade his eyes in a crowd from seeking out the cheek with acne, the infirm hand; how can you teach him to respond to the inestimable greatness of the race, the harsh surface beauty of life; how can you put his finger for him on the obdurate truths before which fear and horror are powerless? The sea that morning was iridescent and dark. My wife and my sister were swimming -- Diana and Helen -- and I saw their uncovered heads, black and gold in the dark water. I saw them come out and I saw that they were naked, unshy, beautiful and full of grace, and I watched the naked women walk out of the sea." - story "Goodbye, My Brother