# Quotes about literature - Quotes: 25 - Authors: 14 - Narrower topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [poetry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature ## Quotes > Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind. Reflections on the Revolution in France Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > Romance gathers round an old story like lichen on an old branch. And the story of Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard is so old now — some say a year old, some say even two. How can the children be expected to remember? Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > There is a second type of mind which produces satire with the quality of greatness. That is embodied in the satirist whose passions are released and let go by some intolerable sense of wrong. He is maddened by the sense of men being maddened; his tongue becomes an unruly member, and testifies against all mankind. Such a man was Swift, in whom the saeva indignatio was a bitterness to others, because it was a bitterness to himself. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/there-is-a-second.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > The third type of great satire is that in which he satirist is enabled to rise superior to his victim in the only serious sense which superiority can bear, in that of pitying the sinner and respecting the man even while he satirises both. Such an achievement can be found in a thing like Pope's "Atticus" a poem in which the satirist feels that he is satirising the weaknesses which belong specially to literary genius. Consequently he takes a pleasure in pointing out his enemy's strength before he points out his weakness. That is, perhaps, the highest and most honourable form of satire. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/the-third-type.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/a-good-novel.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md) > The strong old literature is all in praise of the weak. The rude old tales are as tender to minorities as any modern political idealist. The rude old ballads are as sentimentally concerned for the under-dog as the Aborigines Protection Society. When men were tough and raw, when they lived amid hard knocks and hard laws, when they knew what fighting really was, they had only two kinds of songs. The first was a rejoicing that the weak had conquered the strong, the second a lamentation that the strong had, for once in a way, conquered the weak. For this defiance of the statu quo, this constant effort to alter the existing balance, this premature challenge to the powerful, is the whole nature and inmost secret of the psychological adventure which is called man. It is his strength to disdain strength. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/the-strong-old.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md) > Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance. [James Joyce](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce.md) · [Ulysses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/shakespeare-is-the.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > Our national epic has yet to be written. [James Joyce](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce.md) · [Ulysses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/our-national-epic.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. > > They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will. [James Joyce](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce.md) · [Ulysses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/coffined-thoughts-around.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > I believe that the early success and reputation of Carlyle's French Revolution, were considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in the Review. Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had time to preoccupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves. Autobiography · p. 217 Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he. Autobiography · p. 149 Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [poetry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry.md) > In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poet with the Iliad. After I had made some progress in this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant specimen of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected both à priori and from my individual experience. Autobiography · p. 10 Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [poetry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > Almost overnight, Dorothy Parker was transformed from a woman of letters into a gin-soaked quote machine, with a martini in one hand and a dagger in the other. p. xiii [Dorothy Parker](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dorothy-parker.md) · [Dorothy Parker: Poems](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dorothy-parker/dorothy-parker-poems.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dorothy-parker/dorothy-parker-poems/almost-overnight-dorothy.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > The novels I have been writing lately are the kind I wrote in the 1950s. (I have been criticized for this by some critics, but the day I pay attention to critics is the day the sky will fall.) [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [I, Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov.md) · p. 77 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/the-novels-i-have.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md) > In writing a science fiction novel, you must invent a futuristic social structure which is complex enough to be interesting in itself apart from the story and which is self-consistent. You must also invent a plot that works only within that social structure. The plot must develop without unduly obscuring the description of the social structure, and the social structure must be described without unduly slowing the plot. > > Making a science fiction novel fulfill this double purpose is difficult even for an experienced and talented old hand such as myself. Every other kind of writing is easier than science fiction. [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [I, Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov.md) · p. 265 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/in-writing-a-science.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md) > The critics greeted this book with a churlish and horrified outcry. Certain virtuous people, in newspapers no less virtuous, made a grimace of disgust as they picked it up with the tongs to throw it into the fire. Even the minor literary reviews, the ones that retail nightly the tittle-tattle from alcoves and private rooms, held their noses and talked of filth and stench. I am not complaining about this reception; on the contrary I am delighted to observe that my colleagues have such maidenly susceptibilities. Thérèse Raquin Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md), [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously. [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) · [The Rebel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-rebel.md) · p. 86 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-rebel/a-character-is-never.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md) > Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. [Voltaire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/voltaire.md) · [Candide](https://www.leafyquotes.com/voltaire/candide.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/voltaire/candide/fools-have-a-habit.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written "Alice in Wonderland" than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica. [Stephen Leacock](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-leacock.md) · [Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-leacock/sunshine-sketches-of-a-little-town.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-leacock/sunshine-sketches-of-a-little-town/many-of-my-friends.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md) > Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. > > BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR. [Mark Twain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain.md) · [Adventures of Huckleberry Finn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/persons-attempting-to-find.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop—that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can. [Mark Twain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain.md) · [The Adventures of Tom Sawyer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer/when-one-writes.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md) > All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason. [Mark Twain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain.md) · [Roughing It](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/roughing-it.md) · p. 127 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/roughing-it/all-men-have.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end. [Aristotle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle.md) · [Poetics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/poetics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/poetics/a-whole-is-that.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language ... not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. [Aristotle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle.md) · [Poetics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/poetics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/poetics/a-tragedy-then.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > I exclude the hypothesis of complete originality on [Charles] Lever's part, because a man can no more be completely original in that sense than a tree can grow out of air. [George Bernard Shaw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw.md) · [Major Barbara](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/i-exclude-the.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md)