Literature Quotes
30 quotes
Literature
Imaginative Writing Reflecting Human Experiences and Emotions
30 Quotes
The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare
— To the Lighthouse (1927)
A book is a device to ignite the imagination
— From the play 'The Uncommon Reader' (2007)
After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world
— Interview with The Guardian, 2003
That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong
— Interview in The Observer (1936)
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness
— From the novel 'Molloy'
The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink
— Lecture at University of Virginia (1933)
A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise
— The Shadow of the Wind (2001)
The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts
— Letter to George and Tom Keats, January 1818
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect
— The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5 (1974)
The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose
— Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (2002)
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read
— From The Critic as Artist (1891)
Literature… is the question minus the answer
— Written in 'Writing Degree Zero', 1953, essay
Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life
— The Book of Disquiet, fragment 122
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work
— Le Roman expérimental
Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you
— The Shadow of the Wind, Chapter 15
To read is to voyage through time
— Cosmos, Chapter 11: The Persistence of Memory
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page
— Attributed, Commonly quoted in various writings and sermons
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame
— The Picture of Dorian Gray, Preface
We read to know that we are not alone
— As recalled by William Nicholson, in the play 'Shadowlands', referencing Lewis’s sentiment
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking
— Norwegian Wood, Chapter 5
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms
— The Speed of Darkness, 1968, poem
Man reading should be intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand
— ABC of Reading (1934)
A word after a word after a word is power
— Selected Poems 1965-1975, The Circle Game, poem
Our literature is but a forest echo, responsive only when we search for it by virtue of some ancient spell
— A House for Mr Biswas, Early chapters
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library
— Often cited from essays and interviews, reflective of Borges' lifelong relationship with books
Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation
— Nobel Lecture in Literature (1970)
Literature is life seen through the prism of words
— Common literary proverb
Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic
— Cosmos (1980)
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say
— Why Read the Classics?, essay collection (1986)
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it
— Essay: 'The Fiction Writer and His Country'