Literature Quotes

“The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.”

“What Horace says is, Eheu fugaces Anni labuntur, Postume, Postume!”

“The drawing shows me at a glance what would be tedious to find in a book.”

“Literature is a vital part of the culture; it is one of the ways in which a society constitutes itself.”

“Biography is a very definite region of the literary map, with its own rules and its own wildernesses.”

“The poem is a little world, organized and existing in its own right.”

“The Brothers Grimm are not the source of the fairy tales. They are the collectors.”

“That is what spinors are. They are the square root of geometry.”

“A book may be a flower that blows; a star that glows; a storm that flows; a flame that flies; a tragedy that destroys, or a comedy that cracks its sides with mirth.”

“Novels are about the high-wire moments of being alive.”

“The sublime, the tragic, and the realistic are indissolubly connected.”

“The work of a composer is not to invent tunes but to release the music that is already there in the words.”

“The river is a character in its own right.”

“A true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.”

“Let us confess it: letters are a pastime; and they are not a pastime for a servile and plebeian mind.”

“What is a classic? A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”

“He was not of an age, but for all time!”

“Racine will pass away like coffee.”

“I think that there's a tradition of American writers who are mavericks, who are not part of the literary establishment.”

“The great objection to new books is that they prevent us from reading the old ones.”