Great Literature Quotes

• When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

  James Earl Jones

  Drama, Writing, Black History

  James Earl Jones, Penelope Niven (1993). “James Earl Jones: Voices and Silences”, Scribner Book Company

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• So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Inspirational, Tattoo, Time

  The Great Gatsby ch. 9 (1925).

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• What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

  E. M. Forster

  Reading, Men, Literature

  E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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• Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

  Ezra Pound

  Inspirational, Hygiene, Degrees

  How to Read pt. 2 (1931)

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

  Henry James

  History, Historical, Literature

  Hawthorne ch. 1 (1879)

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• Love is not breathlessness; It is not excitement; It is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love”, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Romantic, Sad Love, Art

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• In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Father, Years, Advice

  Great Gatsby (1925) ch. 1

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• You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.

  Mark Twain

  Book, Adventure, Names

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 1 (1884)

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• Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning ---

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Running, Morning, Years

  Great Gatsby (1925) ch. 9

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• Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

  Saint Augustine

  Love, Art, Passion

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• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

  Charles Dickens

  Spring, Communication, Winter

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

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• Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Running, Green Lights, Arms

  The Great Gatsby ch. 9 (1925).

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• Whenever you feel like criticizing any one... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Thankful, Kindness, Attitude

  "The Great Gatsby". Book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925.

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• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

  George Orwell

  Nineteen, April, Cold

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

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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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• 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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• Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Sad Love, Love Is, Literature History

  FaceBook post by Louis de Bernieres from Dec 18, 2011

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• Feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Remember, Great Gatsby Love, Great Father

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Book House (2016). “F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Complete Novels (Book House)”, p.383, Book House

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• He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.

  Stephen King

  Writing, Shining, Fiction

  Stephen King (2008). “The Shining”, p.282, Anchor

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• It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?

  Jeff VanderMeer

  Literature, World, Born

  Jeff Vandermeer (2007). “City of Saints and Madmen”, p.261, Spectra

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• Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil. Only if we actually tend or care will it transpire that every hundred years or so we might get a Middlemarch.

  P. D. James

  Years, Care, Might

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• There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Art, Philosophy

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• Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else.

  William Butler Yeats

  Pieces, Literature, Becoming

  William Butler Yeats (2017). “Ideas of Good and Evil”, p.79, Litres

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• Just as the office worker dreams of murdering his hated boss and so is saved from really murdering him, so it is with the author; with his great dreams he helps his readers to survive, to avoid their worst intentions. And society, without realizing it respects and even exalts him, albeit with a kind of jealousy, fear and even repulsion, since few people want to discover the horrors that lurk in the depths of their souls. This is the highest mission of great literature, and there is no other.

  Ernesto Sabato

  Dream, Book, Office

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• I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.

  Kathy Reichs

  Writing, Character, People

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