Literature Quotes
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Since I have fought against these Jewish-Soviet ideas in Germany, since I have conquered and stamped out this peril, I fancy that I possess a better comprehension of its character than do these men who have only to deal with it in the field of literature.
Adolf Hitler
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This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers.
P. G. Wodehouse
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People who rarely read long books, or even short stories, still appreciate the greatest examples of the shortest literary genres. I have long been fascinated by these short genres. They seem to lie just where my heart is, somewhere between literature and philosophy.
Gary Saul Morson
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All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.
Sherman Alexie
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When I got to college I simply decided that I could speak French, because I just could not spend any more time in French classes. I went ahead and took courses on French literature, some of them even taught in French.
Lev Grossman
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In my view, madness is a place. You go. You come back. And I think we all take turns being the mental patient. Without a touch of crazy, literature can be a desolate place. In the current climate of careful speech, even fearful speech, smoke-free film scripts, thought-free songs, and child-proof locks on American minds, the oft-repeated lament of the arts is "Where have all those wonderful madmen gone?"
Carol O'Connell
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Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow.
Cesare Pavese
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In the most absolute tranquility or in the midst of tumultuous events, in safety or danger, in innocence or corruption, we are a crowd of others. And this crowd is certainly a blessing for literature.
Elena Ferrante
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I haven't been very enthusiastic about the commercialization of children's literature. Kids should borrow books from the library and not necessarily be buying them.
Beverly Cleary
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When I was a worker I busied myself with socialist or, if you like, marxist literature.
Adolf Hitler
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Beethoven for listening; Liszt, Chopin, and Beethoven for playing as well as Bach and Prokofiev and so on. If I kept going, this list would spiral. It's as wide as literature; in fact, it is probably wider.
William Golding
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Don't feel that you have to tailor your literature a particular way to please any school of ideology. There will emerge in its own right, effortlessly, some kind of ideological direction which is a reflection of your thinking and you want your thinking, above all.
Wole Soyinka
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Some one, I think it was Isaac Disraeli, said that he who did not make himself acquainted with the best thoughts of the greatest writers would one day be mortified to observe that his best thoughts are their indifferent ones, and it is from the great books that have stood the test of time that we shall get, not only the most lasting pleasure, but a standard by which to measure our own thoughts, the thoughts of others, and the excellence of the literature of our own day.
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon
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Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it.
Moses Hadas
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Just as the office worker dreams of murdering his hated boss and so is saved from really murdering him, so it is with the author; with his great dreams he helps his readers to survive, to avoid their worst intentions. And society, without realizing it respects and even exalts him, albeit with a kind of jealousy, fear and even repulsion, since few people want to discover the horrors that lurk in the depths of their souls. This is the highest mission of great literature, and there is no other.
Ernesto Sabato
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I did not discover literature of any kind until I was about eleven, or ten.
Ben Peek