Literature Quotes - Page 29

• When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won't intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.

  Anton Chekhov

  Real, Glasses, Drunk

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• Since the last decades of the nineteenth century, revolt against the objectified world has determined the character of art and literature.

  Paul Tillich

  Art, Character, World

  Paul Tillich (1987). “On art and architecture”, Crossroad Publishing Company

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• Good taste cannot supply the place of genius in literature, for the best proof of taste, when there is no genius, would be, not to write at all.

  Madame de Stael

  Writing, Would Be, Genius

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• The short story is the art form that deals with the individual when there is no longer a society to absorb him, and when he is compelled to exist, as it were, by his own inner light.

  Frank O'Connor

  Art, Light, Stories

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• Short things are short all over and long things are long all over.

  Jim Harrison

  Long, Form

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

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• Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.

  Jim Harrison

  Writing, Problem, Gender

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• The writer's first job is not to have opinions but to tell the truth... and refuse to be an accomplice of lies and misinformation. Literature is the house of nuance and contrariness against the voices of simplification.

  Susan Sontag

  Jobs, Lying, Voice

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.193, Macmillan

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• In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding Death has been characteristic of Christianity. Death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hourglass - all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors.

  Annie Besant

  Fashion, Art, Kings

  Annie Besant (2012). “The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant”, p.332, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Literature has nothing to do with usefulness; the most useful place in any house is the toilet.

  Theophile Gautier

  Writing, House, Toilets

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• They tend to be civil servants, often diplomats drawn from the Foreign Office, who may be very pleasant, intelligent people, but once they get inside the Palace they're riveted to the status quo and they lose track of public opinion in the real world.

  Anthony Holden

  Real, Intelligent, Track

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• Not merely can people like me write things that would never have been printed before but I think an enormously dramatic change has taken place in public opinion, possibly for the wrong reasons.

  Anthony Holden

  Taken, Writing, Thinking

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• Literature expresses itself by abstractions, whereas painting, by means of drawing and colour, gives concrete shape to sensations and perceptions.

  Paul Cezanne

  Mean, Drawing, Giving

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• I don't hate anyone. I dislike. But my dislike is the equivalent of anyone else's hate.

  Elsa Maxwell

  Hate, Don't Hate, Dislike

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• With our short sight we affect to take a comprehensive view of eternity. Our horizon is the universe.

  Paul Laurence Dunbar

  Sight, Views, Horizon

  Paul Laurence Dunbar (2009). “The Uncalled (EasyRead Large Edition)”, p.113, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The American soldier is quick in adapting himself to a new mode of living. Outfits which have been here only three days have dug vast networks of ditches three feet deep in the bare brown earth. They have rigged up a light here and there with a storage battery.

  Ernie Pyle

  Feet, Light, Soldier

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• There's always been anger in the making of music or literature or dance.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Emotion

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• This, indeed, is one of the eternal paradoxes of both life and literature-that without passion little gets done; yet, without control of that passion, its effects are largely ill or null.

  F. L. Lucas

  Passion, Null, Done

  F. L. Lucas (2012). “Style: The Art of Writing Well”, Harriman House Limited

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• Of course, the simple explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of man's life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Simple, Men, Europe

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.24, tredition

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• It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Europe, East, Modern

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.92, tredition

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• There are two methods for the literary study of any book - the first being the study of its thought and emotion; the second only that of its workmanship. A student of literature should study some of the Bible from both points of view.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Book, Views, Two

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.114, tredition

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• Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.

  Helen Dunmore

  Country, Delight, Golden

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• Writing for children is bloody difficult; books for children are as complex as their adult counterparts, and they should therefore be accorded the same respect.

  Mark Haddon

  Children, Book, Writing

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• So no one should rely on television either for their knowledge of music or for news. There's just more going on. It's an adjunct to the written word, which I think is still the most important thing.

  Kurt Loder

  Thinking, Important, News

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• Unity is the most important thing on the road to stamping out terror. You need global rules of law and order, and they have to be enforced. Start with that principle.

  Chris Matthews

  Order, Law, Unity

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• Being a professor and working are not the same thing. The academic community is composed largely of nitwits. If I may generalize. People who don't know very much about what matters very much, who view life through literature rather than the other way around.

  Robert B. Parker

  What Matters, Views, People

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