Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.
It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.
The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.
Many journalists seem to believe that we have become little different from our enemies.
Literature is breathing. I teach literature the way someone else might teach First Aid.
In literature as in life, to conform to anything is to knuckle under to your inferiors.
I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.
Why do they put the Gideon Bibles only in the bedrooms, where it's usually too late...?
It was delightful but, of course, it was pretty insulting to my professional reputation.
I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.
Know how to behave at a fine restaurant, which is a telltale measure of social maturity.
A woman who can't forgive should never have more than a nodding acquaintance with a man.
The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.
Titles are not only important, they are essential for me. I cannot write without a title
Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.
'Lady Chatterley's Lover' is a novel that constitutes a milestone of English literature.
Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.
For some of us, watching a miniseries that lasts longer than most marriages is not easy.
He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.
Nothing is as irritating as the fellow who chats pleasantly while he's overcharging you.
It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing.
One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!
Humor does not rescue us from unhappiness, but enables us to move back from it a little.
In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.
You don't know whether he's thought through how this is going to affect the Middle East.
Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.
I have become infected, now that I see how beautifully a book is coming out of all this.
All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.
To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
Our strength is often composed of the weakness that we're damned if we're going to show.
The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.
The cinema occupies an important place in the overall development of art and literature.
The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.
An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.
Nothing gives us courage more readily than the desire to avoid looking like a damn fool.
The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.
I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.
Much contemporary verse reads like failed short-short stories rather than failed poetry.
My problem with chess was that all my pieces wanted to end the game as soon as possible.
The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity.
There was a time when young people respected learning and literature and now they don't.
But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.
House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad.
Literature is an easier way to study acting, because then you can take any kind of spin.
Be able to cite three good qualities of every relative or acquaintance that you dislike.
I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.
All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.