Literature Quotes

If we want to be sincere, we must admit that there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature.

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
- Love
- Literature
- Sincere
Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.

William Stafford
- Kind
- Flow
- Enhancement

Literature is analysis after the event.

Doris Lessing
- Literature
It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr.
I wanted to be a poet. I fell in love with poetry around eight years old, but not through literature. Instead, it came through hip-hop lyrics and my obsession with reading liner notes. Queen Latifah's 'Black Reign' is the album that stands out the most.

Jason Reynolds
- Black
- Reading
- Poetry
When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

James Earl Jones
- Great
- Mind
- Thoughts
The most common mistake students of literature make is to go straight for what the poem or novel says, setting aside the way that it says it. To read like this is to set aside the ‘literariness’ of the work – the fact that it is a poem or play or novel, rather than an account of the incidence of soil erosion in Nebraska.

Terry Eagleton
- Mistake
- Common
- Students
Children's books aren't textbooks. Their primary purpose isn't supposed to be "Pick this up and it will teach you this." It's not how literature should be. You probably do learn something from every book you pick up, but it might be simply how to laugh.

Joanne Rowling
- Up
- Children
- Book