Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?
The worldview implied by literary fiction is complex and ambiguous, trying to be faithful to the complexity and ambiguity of life.
It's too bad for us 'literary' enthusiasts, but it's the truth nevertheless - pictures tell any story more effectively than words.
Literary fiction - if we must use the term - is not the plotless, meandering indulgence that its detractors would have you believe.
The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money.
I used to teach at Yale, which was at one time a center of postmodernist literary theory. Derrida was there. Paul de Man was there.
It may be time for serious literary novelists to take back some of the subject matter we abandoned to hack novelists and the movies.
I sometimes think there is nothing really to be said about a novel but 'read the book.' I have a jaundiced view of literary critics.
I'd done occasional short stories, but I don't like publishing them in literary magazines; they treat you too much like college boys.
I didn't know V. S. Naipaul very well, and to a large extent, my acquaintance with him was limited to meetings at literary festivals.
I'm not expecting the American literary community to welcome me with open arms. To them I'm just some schmuck kid who wrote some book.
I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.
The preoccupation of American historical and literary scholars with the New England Puritans must seem to outsiders like an obsession.
Now that I think about it, maybe my own literary exploration of the dark secrets held by families could be traced back to V.C. Andrews.
I'm a huge fan of the book and Stephen King is one of my big heroes, literary heroes, and I am a fan, and I want to see a movie of 'It.'
The poem is the literary form of the 21st century. It's able to connect young people in a deep way to language... it's language as play.
I'm not sure that the culture of literary prizes is always a good thing, but while there are literary prizes, it's nice to be nominated.
I use the language I use to my friends. They wouldn't believe me if I used some high-flown literary language. I want them to believe me.
The more you put out there, the more you have to resolve. 'Air' is the most literary comic I've written so far, and that poses problems.
Denise Mina is probably one of the most gifted writers out there, whether it's mystery or literary or whatever label you want to give it.
Food is a great literary theme. Food in eternity, food and sex, food and lust. Food is a part of the whole of life. Food is not separate.
It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.
Being Jewish is a big part of my artistic sensibility and my humor... I think it gives me a certain take on the world on a literary level.
The central question driving literary aesthetics in the age of the iPad is no longer 'How should novels be?' but 'Why write novels at all?'
Me, my literary reputation is mostly abroad, but I am anchored here in New York. I can't think of any other place I'd rather die than here.
I've never seen anyone deal in a literary way with what it takes to stay married for more than 50 years, and that seemed like a worthy goal.
I resisted children's writing for a long time. I saw myself as a writer of literary fiction. But I had so much more fun writing kids' books.
My English is closer to the literary English, and I'm not very familiar with jokes in English or with, you know, with small talk in English.
I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one.
There's a socialist bias to the consensus of the literary world: a '30s mentality that says factory workers are more worthy of our attention.
I mean, I knew of Jane Austen's work, and I guess I'm a fan at a distance insofar as from a literary point of view, it's beautifully written.
For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.
I wasn't the classic comedy type; I wasn't bullied or extrovert. I was more the ambitious literary one who wanted to write clever little plays.
I have always loved really dense, complicated stories with lots of layers, tons of obscure literary references, and a plethora of inside jokes.
I'd always read omnivorously and often thought much literary fiction is read by young men and women in their 20s as substitutes for experience.
People used to expect literary novels to deepen the experience of living; now they are happy with any sustained display of writerly cleverness.
There's as much great authorship in the filmmaker community as in the literary community, and I'd love to welcome more filmmakers into the fold.
I don't have a favorite genre. I think 'genre' is a literary term. I don't have a favorite kind or type of movie. I like the ones that are good.
The literary interview won't tell you what a writer is like. Far more compellingly to some, it will tell you what a writer is like to interview.
Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.
I always assumed I could never make a living out of literary fiction, and I was right. When I did try, it took four years before being published.
As a teenager, I read a lot of science-fiction, but then I read 'Catch-22' and 'The Catcher in the Rye' and started reading more literary fiction.
I wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself.
Emerson was the chief figure in the American transcendental movement, a fact that complicates all accounts of him in literary or cultural history.
Back when I was young, lists seemed like fences on the open range. But secretly, I was pleased to be corralled among other literary thoroughbreds.
Domestic realism has dominated the American marketplace for decades now. It leeches into literary fiction, and I don't think it's that rich a vein.
I hope Gunter Grass will continue helping the SPD in campaigns and that he will otherwise remain with us as a provocative literary figure, as well.
Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.
The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear - and even, in certain respects, would be - the most modern of critical movements.
My mom and dad were actors when they were younger and had a horrible experience of it. My dad became a literary agent and my mom a casting director.