Literature Quotes - Page 39

The compact between writing and walking is almost as old as literature -- a walk is only a step away from a story, and every path tells.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

...I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!

Its a heartening fact about the human race that utopian fiction precedes dystopian fiction in the evolution of literature.

Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.

Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.

I wasn't good with authority, went to lots of schools, didn't like the fact that there was no autonomy.

You don't need to invade a place or install a new government to help bring about a positive change.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Explain to me, please, why in our literature and art so often people absolutely incompetent in this field have the final word.

Some may want to shout on the street, but we should tolerate those who hide in their rooms and use literature to voice their opinions.

The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.

I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.

If I need something, I'll invent it.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.

Be able to recognize many of the major constellations and know the stories behind them

There is nothing that compares to an unexpected round of applause.

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

There's hardly anywhere in literature where you don't find a triangle.

Fascism wants Baptism coast to coast.

The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.

When I got to 40 or so... I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on, and many that I had no control over whatsoever.

Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical.

Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined.