English Literature Quotes - Page 2

• I'd studied English literature and American history, but the English literature, which I thought was going to be helpful to me in an immediate way, was the opposite. So I had to un-think a lot of things and move out of my own head, and I learned a lot. It was like graduate school, but an un-graduate school or an un-school.

  Lynne Tillman

  Moving, School, Literature

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The Irishman in English literature may be said to have been born with an apology in his mouth.

  James Connolly

  Apology, Literature, Mouths

  James Connolly (1971). “Labour in Irish History”, p.22, Lulu.com

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• I used to do miserably in English literature, which I thought was a sign of moral turpitude. As I look back on it, I think it was rather to my credit. The notion of actually putting writers' words into other words is quite ridiculous because why bother if writers mean what they mean, and if they don't, why read them? There is, I suppose, a case for studying literary works in depth, but I don't quite know what 'in depth' means unless you read a paragraph over and over again.

  Patricia Wentworth

  Education, Mean, Thinking

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• I left school at 16 but I wish I'd gone to university - I think I would have studied English literature. I had a knack for that. But I don't think you have the kind of wisdom at 16 to make that decision.

  Brendan Coyle

  School, Thinking, Decision

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I fell even more deeply in love with Tolkiens legendarium after studying Old English literature at uni, as I got a sense of the historical events and cultures that Tolkien used to create his world. My favourite of his imaginary locations is Lothlorien.

  Samantha Shannon

  Historical, Events, Culture

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• I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it aside for a while, because I got very realistic at one point.

  Daniel Suarez

  Age, Novelists, Degrees

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• English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included,--breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. Her wildness is a greenwood, her wild man a Robin Hood. There is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. Her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not the wild man in her, became extinct.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Animal, Men, Lakes

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Civil Disobedience & Other Essays - Premium Collection: 26 Political, Philosophical & Historical Essays: Slavery in Massachusetts, Life Without Principle, The Landlord, Walking, Sir Walter Raleigh, Paradise (to be) Regained, Herald of Freedom, A Plea for Captain John Brown, The Highland Light, Dark Ages…”, p.167, e-artnow

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• I like to take things as they come and, as much as possible, not force anything. I think I could wind up somewhere completely different five years from now, something completely removed from acting - I could be perfectly content studying photography or English literature. At the same time, I love what I'm doing right now and could see doing this for a very long time.

  Hayden Christensen

  Photography, Thinking, Long

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I never intended to be a historian of religion. My aim was to become a professor of English Literature in a university, but I had a series of absolute career disasters and found myself making television programs about the nature of religion and about Christian history and started to discover about other religious traditions, and that was an absolute eye-opener for me.

  Karen Armstrong

  Christian, Religious, Eye

  Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. November 16, 2009.

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• I study English literature but my friends are doing psychology and things like that. No one cares about acting there. It's not competitive and it's a nice environment for me.

  Yasmin Paige

  Nice, Psychology, Acting

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• And in spite of everything, Ireland remains the brain of the Kingdom. The English, judiciously practical and ponderous, furnish the over-stuffed stomach of humanity with a perfect gadget--the water closet. The Irish, condemned to express themselves in a language not their own, have stamped on it the mark of their own genius and compete for glory with the civilized nations. This is then called English literature.

  James Joyce

  Perfect, Water, Humanity

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

  Richard Dawkins

  Biblical, Literature, Allusion

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• There are reviews that are clearly wrong. Dr. Johnson's famous Life of Savage, he's clearly wrong about the value of Savage. But it's one of the great works in English literature. You can learn more about the artistic expression and what the poet does and how to write about art from that than any number of guys who are terrible writers, who have no original ideas, but who say yes, "Hamlet" is a wonderful play. It's a meaningless statement.

  Gary Giddins

  Art, Writing, Guy

  Source: bigthink.com

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• There's a history of English literature where the best boils to the top, and Jane Austen stands right at the top of that.

  JJ Feild

  Literature, Austen, Jane

  Source: collider.com

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• I think in general there's no point in going into a field like English literature if you're not going to have fun with it.

  Louis Menand

  Fun, Thinking, Literature

  Source: bigthink.com

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• I soon realized that a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is going on in what he reads: The most conscientous student will be continually misconstruing the implications, even the meaning.

  Northrop Frye

  Doe, Literature, Students

  Northrop Frye, Alvin A. Lee (2006). “The Great Code: The Bible and Literature”, p.5, University of Toronto Press

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• I often think that eventually I'd love to do some papers... my correspondence if life calms down a bit, but I think I'd do history or English literature... I've had enough of journos.

  Brooke Fraser

  Thinking, Literature, Paper

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• I went to university and studied English literature, and I forgot about music. I was gonna be a journalist. But then I decided to try and be a backing singer, and my mum was like, "Go for it." If that didn't work, I was gonna go to law school. I was just being boringly sensible; trying to be a singer felt a bit indulgent.

  Jessie Ware

  School, Law, Trying

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• I loved English literature - if didn't it would have been hard - but I had to learn it myself. I remembered ways to repeat words, to put more emphasis on certain lines.

  Benjamin Clementine

  Literature, Lines, Way

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.

  Mira Nair

  Hangover, School, Years

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• I changed my major to English literature, which was on the advice of my father. I finally said, "You know, Dad, to heck with it: I'm just going to be an actor. But I'm going to go to school." And he said, "Well, if you're going to go to school, then major in English literature. Those are the tools you are going to be working with as a man who's going to be acting in English, one would assume."

  Keith Carradine

  Dad, Father, School

  "Keith Carradine on 'Deadwood,' 'Fargo,' and Madonna". Interview with Will Harris, www.avclub.com. July 20, 2016.

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• My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

  Margaret Atwood

  Brother, Gone, Literature

  "Oryx and Crake". Book by Margaret Atwood, May, 2003.

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• There's always a host of voices you're inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He's one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens.

  Dylan Moran

  Voice, Literature, Singers

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• I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.

  Rachel Weisz

  Stories, Literature, Narrative

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. May 14, 2009.

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• But I don't know, maybe it's just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English Literature, and he nodded and said: "It's there.

  Helene Hanff

  Years, People, Guy

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