Paul de Man Quotes
Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.
Quotes to Explore
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William Lloyd Garrison was up there with Frederick Douglass being thrown off trains and going through what happened in the 1960s in 1840 in Boston.
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The Arab world also won the Nobel with me. I believe that international doors have opened, and that from now on, literate people will consider Arab literature also. We deserve that recognition.
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What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.
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I get upset about what is taken as great literature and what is cute and exotic.
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When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.
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Being in water makes me relax instantly.
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Being on 'The Sopranos' definitely prepared me for the militant secrecy of 'Mad Men.'
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Every four weeks I go up a bra size... it's worth being pregnant just for the breasts.
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Being, in the testimony it gives of itself, informs us not only about what it is but also about what we owe it.
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Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.
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I love working in America, I love being part of the industry out here.
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Literature is memory written down. All literature is memory.
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Me being able to beat up Austin Powers? I mean, how great can that be?
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I'm a big reader, so when I was in 'Pride and Prejudice,' or, like, in Poirots and Marples, those are all books that I loved, and so it was really exciting for me to inhabit characters from literature that I knew and recognized.
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A human being is a deciding being.
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To me, steampunk and urban fantasy are naturally hinged together. And I think that's because I love the early gothic Victorian literature, and both things spring from that movement.
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I've taken great pride in not being fragile.
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I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.
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But I've never looked at myself as being particularly funny.
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Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
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There is a cheap literature that speaks to us of the need of escape. It is true that when we travel we are in search of distance. But distance is not to be found. It melts away. And escape has never led anywhere. The moment a man finds that he must play the races, go the Arctic, or make war in order to feel himself alive, that man has begin to spin the strands that bind him to other men and to the world. But what wretched strands! A civilization that is really strong fills man to the brim, though he never stir. What are we worth when motionless, is the question.
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What did we want? We want the world smaller and bigger and just the same but advancing. We don’t know what we want.
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We can't defend the country by looking at the borderline as the first line of defense rather than as the last line of defense. We have to secure the flow of goods and people by engaging with foreign entities. We assure our security by securing the flows as early as we can before they arrive and as far away from our borders as we can.
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Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.
