Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.
True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.
The Pulitzer Prize is an idea; it's a vote of confidence. Like literature, it exists purely in the mind.
He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.
Courteousness is consideration for others; politeness is the method used to deliver such considerations.
To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.
The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.
After a fellow gets famous it doesn't take long for someone to bob up that used to sit by him in school.
Why should I ask the wise men: Whence is my beginning? I am busy with the thought: Where will be my end?
In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.
Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.
The only books that work are those which fly through the air - the ones you let happen, not make happen.
I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.
The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
In general, in poetry and literature, I am among those people who believe that too much is indispensable.
I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.
I was inspired to write this book by those who are sceptical of the power of freedom to change the world.
The horror of the Twentieth Century was the size of each new event, and the paucity of its reverberation.
I just finished writing an essay about William Maxwell, an American writer whose work I admire very much.
In the society, where people are just parts in a larger machine, individuals are unable to develop fully.
If I might control the literature of the household, I would guarantee the well-being of Church and State.
Only as far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life and family life in general.
Performing doesn't turn me on. It's an egomaniac business, filled with prima donnas - including this one.
And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?
Touch us gently, Time! Let us glide adown thy stream Gently,-as we sometimes glide Through a quiet dream!
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.
That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.
We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems.
Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
Always in my books, I like to throw that rogue element into a stable situation and then see what happens.
A woman writer, quitting love before literature when love lets her down, will put literature before love.
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.
What Shakespeare and the Greeks were able to do was radically question what it meant to be a human being.
Nature and literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast
Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.
Hindu religious literature, indeed all religious literature, is full of illustrations to prove the truth.
I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.
No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking.
Rhetoric takes no real account of the art in literature and morality takes no account of the art in life.
All our discontents about what we want appeared to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
There are few surer ways to become disliked by men than to perform well where they have performed poorly.
The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.
At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly.
Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,--they are better critics than authors.
When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature.
Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.
All great literature has an uncreeded and luminous theology behind it... Art [is] a form of active prayer.