Quotes about Literature

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.

It is a good rule never to see or talk to the author of a book one admires; it is disappointing if he is not what one expects, and it is worse if he is.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.

A gentleman can live through anything.

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.

Literature was born not the day when a boy crying 'wolf, wolf' came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels: literature was born on the day when a boy came crying 'wolf, wolf' and there was no wolf behind him.

An author who enjoys writing may sometimes please other people by accident, but he can never pass on to any one else.

The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics.

There are - as everyone knows - two kinds of writing: one coming out of your vitals and the other from the top.

Writing is a way to retain the self, to communicate the self, to commune with others.

The only way to write is to write. Writers write. If you get it down on paper, it's already a success.

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.