Literature Quotes - Page 127

The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature.

Secret families are really the bedrock issue of Western literature.

In many parts of the world, including the Arab world, the Latin American world, and even parts of the Western world, there is a tradition of writers being quite engaged. Particularly in the Arab world you have had very, very strong traditions of literature and poetry and most of the writers have been deeply committed to the cause of the Arab nation.

You're not getting the joy out of literature that it gave you. This is the danger of what we do. Look at Hemingway and so many others. You devote your life to one thing, that is what you are. It's artificial but it's all you have. If you lose it, then you're nothing and there's no point in going on.

The greatness of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.

My master's degree was in English literature.

If literature survives at all, it is as retreat for those who refuse to assimilate to American mass culture.

The ratio of authentic literature to trash in pornography may be somewhat lower than the ratio of novels of genuine literary meritto the entire volume of sub-literary fiction produced for mass taste. But it is probably not lower than, for instance, that of another somewhat shady sub-genre with a few first-rate books to its credit, science fiction.

Literature usually begets literature.

If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories.

Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom. Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

The government ought to help out, because the average citizen can't go out and be doing reviews of the scientific literature. And focus on the processes that have low side effects and good long-term outcomes. Right now you're going to find those in the psychosocial area, in the therapy area, in the empirically supported treatments such as ACT or cognitive behavior therapy, behavior therapy. And go there first rather than going to the pill bottle as if it's going to be the end of your journey. Very often it's only going to help, and even only to a minor degree, and more is going to be needed.

I've spoken out my whole life against the idea of simply dismissing whole areas of fiction by saying it's "genre" and therefore can't be seen as literature.

Oldboy makes us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. It's a grand, gritty, indelible experience, the sort of picture that mimics great literature in the way it envelops you in a well-told story while also evoking subtle but strong gradations of emotion.

Gypsies are, to say the least, underrepresented in literature and film.

What literature brings to our times is always the fact that literature refuses to bring any simple or easy answers.

Literature acknowledges that life is complicated.

I have for myself no conceivable complaint to make, and yet for American literature in general, and its standing in a country where industrialism and finance and science flourish and the only arts that are vital and respected are architecture and the film, I have a considerable complaint.

When literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.

Literature in France seems to be undergoing a crisis now, and nothing comes immediately to mind.

No one can create a noteworthy work without knowing the tenets of their own language and literature. Language is renewed but it never changes its essence, because the contracts that have come about over time for communication cannot be rescinded so easily.

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.

There isn't a lot of poverty literature in the young-adult world. And I don't know why that is, but I think certainly I felt a gap.

Literature and art are one of a number of relationships I have with the world. Like you have relationships with your friends and a relationship with your lover and your relationship with your family and your relationship with your work - sometimes it's really great; sometimes it's non-existent, sometimes it's fruitful.

I'm a reader and a storyteller, and God chose literature and story and poetry as the languages of my spiritual text. To me, the Bible is a manifesto, a guide, a love letter, a story.