...Quotes on Reading, Writing @ Literature...

WhiskeyScotch

“Books are a staircase to unknown worlds.”

― Jason Ellis

WhiskeyScotch

“Many of the greatest books are like a forest. “The best way to get to know them is to wander right into the middle and get lost.”

― Anthony M. Esolen

WhiskeyScotch

“Literature is the question without the answer. Philosophy is the answer without the question.”

― Chloe Thurlow

WhiskeyScotch

“Literature shrivels in a universal language, and an uprooted language rots before it dies. And it should be possible to lift the eyes above the cant of the ‘language of Shakespeare’... sufficiently to realise the magnitude of the loss to humanity that the world-dominance of any one language now spoken would entail: no language has ever possessed but a small fraction of the varied excellences of human speech, and each language represents a different vision of life ...”

― J.R.R. Tolkien

WhiskeyScotch

“We obtained literature by our own efforts, it is a product of our own life, and that is why we love it so much and hold it so dear, why we pin our hopes on it.”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

WhiskeyScotch

“When you write a story, don't just write it - live it;
When putting words into the mouth of a protagonist (or any character) imagine yourself saying them and while writing about the reaction of the listener, write it the way you would react.
Let the conversations not be meant merely to be read but felt as well.
If you do not feel what you write; how can you expect the readers to feel it?”

― Arti Honrao

seribulan

“I almost always urge people to write in the first person. … Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.”
—William Zinsse

bianglala

"Few people actually read. Instead, everyone likes pretending they read. If we spent as much time reading as we say we do, we'd be grossly overweight and depressed."

- How Not to Read: Harnessing the Power of a Literature-Free Life : DAN WILBUR

bianglala

"Literature, especially poetry, and lyric poetry most of all, is a kind of family joke, with little or no value outside its own language-group."

- The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius : GEORGE ORWELL

bianglala

"I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature…literature should be left to essayists. "

- Jacqueline Susann

bianglala

"Literature is what intelligent people have instead of dope."

- Patrick Hemingway

bianglala

"Literature is like phosphorus: it shines with its maximum brilliance and the moment when it attempts to die."

- Writing Degree Zero : ROLAND BARTHES

bianglala

"Our lives are greatly enriched when we immerse ourselves in literature and spiritual writing, not because we are going to be tested but purely for the sake of enrichment."

- Wayne W. Dyer

bianglala

"If you have feelings about reading, you feel the rhythm of prose or of a poem like music. It awakens something in your soul and then of course you study, read, you grow up and you begin to understand the message and that is the first step towards understanding life."

- María Kodama

bianglala

"I slipped into art to escape life. I sneaked off into literature."

- An Unnecessary Woman : RABIH ALLAMEDINE

bianglala

"Literature, in fact, had been concerned with virtues and vices of a perfectly healthy sort, the regular functioning of brains of a normal conformation, the practical reality of current ideas, with never a thought for morbid depravities and other-worldly aspirations; in short, the discoveries of these anaylists of human nature stopped short at the speculations good or bad, classified by the church; their efforts amounted to no more than the humdrum researches of a botanist who watches closely the expected development of ordinary flora planted in common or garden soil."

- Against Nature : JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS

bianglala

"How could poetry and literature have arisen from something as plebian as the cuneiform equivalent of grocery-store bar codes? I prefer the version in which Prometheus brought writing to man from the gods. But then I remind myself that…we should not be too fastidious about where great ideas come from. Ultimately, they all come from a wrinkled organ that at its healthiest has the color and consistency of toothpaste, and in the end only withers and dies."

- The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain : ALICE W. FLAHERTY

WhiskeyScotch

“I can't bear literary snobbery.”

― Sara Sheridan

WhiskeyScotch

“The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature."

― John Steinbeck

WhiskeyScotch

“Literature shrivels in a universal language, and an uprooted language rots before it dies. And it should be possible to lift the eyes above the cant of the ‘language of Shakespeare’... sufficiently to realise the magnitude of the loss to humanity that the world-dominance of any one language now spoken would entail: no language has ever possessed but a small fraction of the varied excellences of human speech, and each language represents a different vision of life ...”

― J.R.R. Tolkien