Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It gradually dawned upon me that there was no one more difficult to please than my mother.
The first step toward tolerance is respect and the first step toward respect is knowledge.
This story of loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.
The exercise of reason is not available only to specialists; it is accessible to everyone.
I was in Venice teaching, so I reread Henry James's "The Wings of the Dove." I love James.
Man eternally tries to get back to an organic past that has slipped just beyond his reach.
Nothing is sadder than the consequences of having worldly standards without worldly means.
Life involves maintaining oneself between contradictions that can't be solved by analysis.
It was jolly in the country. A cow and little pigs to play with and milk warm from the cow.
My debt to you, Belovèd, Is one I cannot pay In any coin of any realm On any reckoning day.
I do my best to make every word from my pen a cry from the heart for the souls of the dead.
If the masses are not thrown a few novels , they may react by throwing up a few barricades.
There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity.
I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.
We must reject that most dismal and fatuous notion that education is a preparation for life.
Any attempt to define literary theory in terms of a distinctive method is doomed to failure.
There seems to be something in humanity which will not bow meekly to the insolence of power.
I am strongly convinced that the people or society is the best and the most unerring critic.
All those large dreams by which men long live well Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell.
I don't believe in myths of decline or myths of progress, even as regards the literary scene.
Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions.
You must find the ideas that have some promise in them... It is not enough to just have ideas.
The novel doesn't come into existence until certain methods of reproducing fiction come along.
Postmodernism is among other things a sick joke at the expense of revolutionary avant-gardism.
No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.
The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.
You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.
Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.
Geniuses are at work in the rock music field, and great popularity is no proof you aren't good.
Much as I try to disguise myself, there is never a time when I'm not aware of being overweight.
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.
Lincoln had a tremendous capacity for personal growth - more than any other American President.
The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.
But I did not find any positive inspiration in my studies until I approached my nineteenth year.
In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one why it matters to read.
The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.
The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case.
Lincoln would love the fact that Obama is such a great conciliator, trying to transcend ideology.
Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.
This is the great vice of academicism, that it is concerned with ideas rather than with thinking.
If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.
You can tell that the capitalist system is in trouble when people start talking about capitalism.
Postmodernism is among other things a sick joke at the expense of... revolutionary avant-gardism.
As against having beautiful workshops, studies, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day.
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Any feeling that I was enriching my mind from those surrounding me was unfortunately rare with me.
If there is a chronic infirmity by which every teacher ought to be afflicted, it is, indeed, hope.
The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.
The literature of women's lives is a tradition of escapees, women who have lived to tell the tale.