Best 5099 quotes in «literature quotes» category

In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which, as any American high school student can tell you, was an act that apparently had something to do with stamps.

In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later invades the regions of Literature.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

In America today, if your sensibilities are offended by something that has happened, you get an enormous amount of credibility and are taken very seriously.

In America few people will trust you unless you are irreverent.

In a repressive society, a writer can be deeply influential, but in a society that's filled with glut and repetition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act.

In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.

In a society which is structured the wrong way, piety has no effect.

In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression.

In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.

In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.

In college, I had a big fixation with Southern Gothic literature. Flannery O'Connor, I read every word she's ever written.

In communist Russia, their major organ was Pravda, which means "truth." The Russians knew how to read between the lines. They didn't take their literature literally.

Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.

Indeed, whenever a new idea is developed, as for example ballooning, warfare immediately takes possession.

Indeed I did not stand as a beggar at the Parliament door, for I never was at the Parliament-House, nor stood I ever at the door as I do know or can remember; not as a petitioner I am sure.

Indeed, I was so afraid to dishonour my friends and family by my indiscreet actions, that I rather chose to be accounted a fool, than to be thought rude or wanton.

I needed to justify my existence, and I had made an absolute of literature. It took me thirty years to get rid of this state of mind.

I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.

I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it

I never saw anything that would qualify as a criminal activity.

I never taste the wine first in restaurants, I just ask the waiter to pour.

I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.

In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.

I never wanted to become an actress because I'd read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did.

I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more.

In fact a favourite problem of Tyndall is-Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily.

In every parting there is an image of death.

In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.

Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed an estimated 95% of the New World's Indian population.

In fiction, I have been on a Zweig kick. In England over December, I noticed that many British newspapers' year-end recommenders were praising the Pushkin Press for reissuing several works by Stefan Zweig, a brilliant Austrian writer whose work brings to mind that of his compatriot Joseph Roth... these fictions are a treat of prewar European literature

In France one must adapt oneself to the fragrance of a urinal.

In French literature, you can choose a la carte; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.

In general, in poetry and literature, I am among those people who believe that too much is indispensable.

In Holland, things were pretty stale for me. Even though there were a lot of good influences and a certain openness to music and art and literature, I just wanted to go somewhere less familiar - somewhere bigger.

Injections are the best thing ever invented for feeding doctors.

In journalism, if there's a hole in your story you figure out a way around it because you've got a 4 p.m. deadline. It's a neat skill to have but it's deadly for literature. In literature, you need to stare at that hole, not ignore it. You need to figure it out.

In literary history, generation follows generation in a rage.

In his deepest heart there surge tremendous shame and madness mixed with sorrow and love whipped on by frenzy and a courage aware of its own worth.

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.

In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.

In literature, you either create a classical or create a foam! There is no in between!

In life, single women are the most vulnerable adults. In movies, they are given imaginary power.

In literature, the ghost is almost always a metaphor for the weight of the past. I don't believe in them in the traditional sense.

In many ways, it was much, much harder to get the first book contract. The hardest thing probably overall has been learning not to trust people, publicists and so forth, implicitly.

In literature imitations do not imitate.

In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.