Literary Quotes

A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!

The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear - and even, in certain respects, would be - the most modern of critical movements.

Anonymous sources are a practice of American journalism in the 20th and 21st century, a relatively recent practice. The literary tradition of anonymity goes back to the Bible.

I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway.

The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive.

There's that unwritten schism that literary writers get all the awards and commericals writers get all the success.

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.

Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot.

People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different.

Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing they're whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.

Maybe when I'm sixty-five I'll talk about my literary life.

We served on the editorial board of a literary monthly called Face in 1968 and 1969. He was a young writer, and I was also interested in broad cultural issues. We agreed on all major issues and became friends.

As the poet has expected, the alarms now are sounded, for - and it must be said again - the birth of a poet is always a threat to the existing cultural order, because he attempts to break through the circle of literary castes to reach the center.

During half a century of literary work, I have endeavoured to introduce the philosophy of evolution into the sphere of literature, and to inspire my readers to think in evolutionary terms.

I wonder what it means about American literary culture and its transmission when I consider the number of American poets who earn their living teaching creative writing in universities. I've ended up doing that myself.

I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know exactly why I didn't.

One of the great privileges of having grown up in a middle-class literary English household, but having gone to school in the front lines in Southeast London, was that I became half-street-urchin and half-good-boy at home. I knew that dichotomy was possible.

Doesn't all experience crumble in the end to mere literary material?

The Bible was written in several languages, embraces many literary forms, and reflects cultures very different from our own. These are important considerations for properly understanding the Bible in its context.

First would be the literary side, then the spiritual and philosophical. The political side is required principally because of the necessity of the current Russian position.

The aim of literary ambition is to demonstrate one's greatness of soul.

One of the reasons I like Barthes more than other writers of that ilk is because he had a literary quality.

There might be a different model for a literary community that's quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

I guess the two Manifesto, Communicating Vessels, Mad Love, and some of his poetry made a significant mark on me but as far as bringing a literary element into the music I see it as a much broader assimilation.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. My family was not nationally known as being a literary family, though my mother and my mother's side of the family in general were interested in literature.

At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We have jobs, children, partners, debts. This is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks.

How dare anyone, parent, schoolteacher, or merely literary critic, tell me not to act colored.

Today, there are more opportunities for writers in terms of access to larger success, but it's more difficult to publish a literary novel in the lower ranges. In other words, you almost have to hit a home run. You can hit a triple, maybe, but nobody's interested in a single.