English Literature Quotes

• English literature is a glorious inheritance which is open to all - there are no barriers, no coupons, and no restrictions. In the English language and in its great writers there are great riches and treasures, of which, of course, the Bible and Shakespeare stand along on the highest platform.

  Winston Churchill

  Inheritance, Literature, Treasure

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• English literature is a kind of training in social ethics. English trains you to handle a body of information in a way that is conducive to action.

  Marilyn Butler

  Creativity, Training, Literature

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• What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Sweet, Flower

  'Romeo And Juliet' (1595) act 2, sc. 2, l. 43

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• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

  Charles Dickens

  Inspirational, Time, Cities

  A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 1 (1859)

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• It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

  Jane Austen

  Inspirational, Funny, Relationship

  Pride and Prejudice ch. 1 (1813)

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• Develop an Interest in Life as you see it.

  Henry Miller

  Passion, Interest In Life, Beautiful Soul

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• For this reason, to study English literature without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Would Be, Literature, Study

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.105, tredition

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• Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

  Henry Miller

  Music, Beauty, Beautiful

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• It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Race, Literature, Next

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.105, tredition

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• I'd probably want to teach at university, because children would drive me insane. I suspect it would be English literature, Shakespeare and so forth. I've always been deeply, deeply in love with that kind of thing.

  Stephen Fry

  Children, Insane, Would Be

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• I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.

  Maggie Gyllenhaal

  Independent, Class, Literature

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• In my teens, I developed a passionate idolatry for a teacher of English literature. I wanted to do something that he would approve of more, so I thought I should be some sort of a scholar.

  Trevor Nunn

  Teacher, Passionate, Teens

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• I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Passion, Fiction, Literature

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.23, tredition

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• When I entered college, it was to study liberal arts. At the University of Pennsylvania, I studied English literature, but I fell in love with broadcasting, with telling stories about other people's exploits.

  Andrea Mitchell

  Art, College, People

  Andrea Mitchell (2006). “Talking Back: To Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels”, p.5, Penguin

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• I have preferred to teach my students not English literature but my love for certain authors, or, even better, certain pages, or even better than that, certain lines. One falls in love with a line, then with a page, then with an author. Well, why not? It is a beautiful process.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Beautiful, Falling In Love, Why Not

  Jorge Luis Borges (2013). “Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature”, p.259, New Directions Publishing

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• English literature is a flying fish.

  E. M. Forster

  Fishing, Flying, Literature

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• I feel a bit of an imposter talking about the science. I'm not a scientist, you may be aware. I read English Literature.

  James Delingpole

  Talking, Literature, May

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• The English tourist in American literature wants above all things something different from what he has at home. For this reason the one American writer whom the English whole-heartedly admire is Walt Whitman. There, you will hear them say, is the real American undisguised. In the whole of English literature there is no figure which resembles his - among all our poetry none in the least comparable to Leaves of Grass

  Virginia Woolf

  Real, Home, Leaves Of Grass

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.3129, Delphi Classics

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• The Bible contains some of the most sublime passages in English literature, but is also full of contradictions, inconsistencies, and absurdities.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Bible, Religious, Sublime

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• The cliché is dead poetry. English, being the language of an imaginative race, abounds in clichés, so that English literature is always in danger of being poisoned by its own secretions.

  Gerald Brenan

  Race, Poetry, Literature

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• With English literature, if you do a bit of shonky spelling, no one dies, but if you're half-way through a maths calculation and you stick in an extra zero, everything just crashes into the ravine.

  Mark Haddon

  Zero, Math, Half

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• Kingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century.

  Russell Baker

  Literature, Trios, Novelists

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• I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.

  A. S. Byatt

  Writing, Literature, Ants

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• Quoting, like smoking, ... is a dirty habit to which I am devoted. But then ... I am a professor of English literature; it is an occupational hazard.

  Carolyn Heilbrun

  Dirty, Smoking, Hazards

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• As a student in England, I studied French and English literature. I read L'Etranger and the rhythm of the novel felt familiar to me - very African.

  Sefi Atta

  Literature, England, Students

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