Literature Quotes - Page 26

• Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end...

  Karel Capek

  Triumph, Might, Melancholy

  "Karel Čapek: Life and Work". Book by Ivan Klima, 2002.

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• One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!

  Gustave Flaubert

  Blood, Style, Tire

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• The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Doubt, Mania

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• I'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.

  Jim Harrison

  Enough, Rational, Journalist

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, themorningnews.org. June 7, 2004.

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• I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.

  Jim Harrison

  Book, Reviews

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, themorningnews.org. June 7, 2004.

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• I should add that I very much enjoy certain cities especially Paris, New York and Chicago.

  Jim Harrison

  New York, Cities, Paris

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• There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in literature such as are offered by the learned professions, but there are quite as many small ones - competences; while, on the other hand, it is not so much of a lottery.

  James Payn

  Hands, Competence, Profession

  James Payn (1882). “Sammlung”

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• I don't think there will ever be a permanent truce, but I believe the media needs to be more careful and be willing to count to 10 before rushing on the air or into print.

  Bob Woodward

  Believe, Thinking, Air

  "Watergate: 25 Years Later". The Washington Post Live Online discussion, www.washingtonpost.com. June 17, 1997.

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• Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field, this product of human activity requires still more labor, incessant, tireless labor, to maintain its identity as a 'work' of man.

  Mary McCarthy

  Men, Identity, Doe

  Mary McCarthy (1961). “On the contrary”, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

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• We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.

  Elizabeth Drew

  Pain, Loss, Frustration

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• If you're a Conservative, why aren't you behind conserving the land?

  Ken Kesey

  Land, Conservative, Behinds

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• Exciting literature after supper is not the best digestive.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Exciting, Supper

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1935). “The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography”, p.20, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.

  Julian Barnes

  Art, Order, Different

  Julian Barnes, Vanessa Guignery, Ryan Roberts (2009). “Conversations with Julian Barnes”, p.65, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift; it becomes moral philosophy or some such dull thing.

  Anthony Burgess

  Uplifting, Philosophy, Dull

  Anthony Burgess (2012). “The Kingdom of the Wicked”, p.4, Allison & Busby

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• I've always liked being relatively obscure. I feel that's where I belong, that's where my work belongs.

  Don DeLillo

  Obscure, Feels

  Don DeLillo, Thomas DePietro (2005). “Conversations with Don DeLillo”, p.77, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• It's no accident that my first novel was called Americana. This was a private declaration of independence, a statement of my intention to use the whole picture, the whole culture.

  Don DeLillo

  Independence, Culture, Use

  Don DeLillo, Thomas DePietro (2005). “Conversations with Don DeLillo”, p.88, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I am a literary animal. For me, everything ends in literature.

  Carlos Fuentes

  Animal, Ends

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• Modern American literature was born in protest, born in rebellion, born out of the sense of loss and indirection which was imposed upon the new generations out of the realization that the old formal culture-the "New England idea"-could no longer serve.

  Alfred Kazin

  Loss, Ideas, Generations

  Alfred Kazin (2013). “On Native Grounds: An Interpretation Of Modern American Prose Literature”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I just finished writing an essay about William Maxwell, an American writer whose work I admire very much.

  Donna Tartt

  Writing, Admire, Maxwell

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• Well, I think storytellers have always found murder a fascinating device.

  Donna Tartt

  Thinking, Murder, Found

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• The simple point is that literature belongs to the world man constructs, not to the world he sees; to his home, not his environment.

  Northrop Frye

  Home, Simple, Men

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.443, University of Toronto Press

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• Horace, in a particularly boastful mood, once said his verse would last as long as the vestal virgins kept going up the Capitoline Hill to worship at the temple of Jupiter. But Horace's poetry has lasted longer than Jupiter's religion, and Jupiter himself has only survived because he disappeared into literature.

  Northrop Frye

  Long, Jupiter, Lasts

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.447, University of Toronto Press

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• Literature is one of the few areas left where black and white feel some identity of purpose; we all struggle under censorship.

  Nadine Gordimer

  Struggle, Black And White, Identity

  Nadine Gordimer, Nancy Topping Bazin, Marilyn Dallman Seymour (1990). “Conversations with Nadine Gordimer”, p.141, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Thinking, Vanity

  'The Bertrams' (1859) ch. 27

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• I ain't a bit ashamed of anything.

  Anthony Trollope

  Ashamed, Bits

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children”, p.1596, e-artnow

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