best quotations about
Literature |
and Fiction
| 73 quotes | Visits: 1,840 |
Quotations
 | Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. — Mark Twain, 1835-1910, American writer 8 likes |
 | The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation. — Wolfgang Goethe, 1749-1832, German poet & philosopher 7 likes |
 | An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. — Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880, French writer 6 likes |
 | The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means. — Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer 4 likes |
 | To write is to forget. Literature is the pleasantest way of ignoring life. — Fernando Pessoa, 1888-1935, Portuguese poet & writer 4 likes |
 | A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. — Albert Camus, 1913-1960, French writer, Nobel 1957 4 likes |
 | The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order. — Jean Cocteau, 1889-1963, French artist 4 likes |
 | There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature. — Lawrence Durrell, 1912-1990, British writer 4 likes |
 | If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators. — William Hazlitt , 1778-1830, English essayist & critic 4 likes |
 | There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature. — Henry Miller, 1891-1980, American writer 4 likes |
 | I translated Dante’s “Inferno” because I discovered some of my ancestors in it! — Antoine Rivarol, 1753-1801, French author of maxims 3 likes |
 | Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once, and they require separate techniques. — Cyril Connolly, 1903-1974, British writer 3 likes |
| Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will. — Wolfgang Goethe, 1749-1832, German poet & philosopher 3 likes |
 | Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family. — Gore Vidal, 1925-2012, American writer 3 likes |
| Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth. — Albert Camus, 1913-1960, French writer, Nobel 1957 3 likes |
 | The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink. — T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965, British poet, Nobel 1948 3 likes |
| Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third. — T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965, British poet, Nobel 1948 3 likes |
 | Literature is a splendid mistress, but a bad wife. — Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936, English writer, Nobel 1907 3 likes |
 | Literature has nothing to do with usefulness; the most useful place in any house is the toilet. — Théophile Gautier, 1811-1872, French poet & writer 3 likes |
 | A poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage. — Erica Jong, 1942-, American writer 3 likes |
 | What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 3 likes |
 | Literature - creative literature - unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable. — Gertrude Stein, 1874-1946, American writer 3 likes |
 | What makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not its social importance but its art, only its art. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 2 likes |
 | My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 2 likes |
 | The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting. — Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, German philosopher 2 likes |
| American society, literary or lay, tends to be humorless. What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke? — Gore Vidal, 1925-2012, American writer 2 likes |
| The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 2 likes |
 | Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity. — G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English writer & critic 2 likes |
| A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. — G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English writer & critic 2 likes |
 | Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none. — Jules Renard, 1864-1910, French writer 2 likes |
 | It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written. — André Gide, 1869-1951, French writer, Nobel 1947 2 likes |
 | The Bible is literature, not dogma. — George Santayana, 1863-1952, Spanish-American philosopher 2 likes |
 | Today's literature: prescriptions written by patients. — Karl Kraus, 1874-1936, Austrian writer 2 likes |
 | I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. — Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, British scientist 2 likes |
 | Literature is painting, architecture, and music. — Yevgeni Zamyatin, 1884-1937, Russian writer 2 likes |
| Literature was not born the day when a boy crying “wolf, wolf” came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying “wolf, wolf” and there was no wolf behind him. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 2 likes |
 | That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong. — Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1940, American writer 1 likes |
 | The Gospels are the last and most wonderful expression of Greek genius, as the Iliad was its first expression. — Simone Weil, 1909-1943, French philosopher 1 likes |
 | In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others. — André Maurois, 1885-1967, French writer 1 likes |
| Literature - creative literature - unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable. |
 | Science enriches the mind. Literature enriches the personality. |
 | National literature begins with fables and ends with novels. |
| To achieve new things in literature, we must move expressions; in philosophy, you have to move ideas. |
 | Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. |
| The weak places in a book need to be better written than the others. |
| The difficult thing in literature is knowing what not to say. |
| She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books. — Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880, French writer ‐ Madame Bovary |
 | The trouble with fiction is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense. |
| Fiction is Truth’s elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story. |
 | To be up to the eyebrows in a great work of literature is such happiness. |
 | In literature, as in Life, one is often astonished by what is chosen by others. |
| The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything. |
 | I will never be able to write my memoirs, I lie too much. |
| Conflict is the soul of literature. |
 | When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder that such trivial people should muse and thunder in such lovely language. |
 | You don't make good literature with good feelings. So the Bible, what a masterpiece! |
 | Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. |
| Myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end. |
 | Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise. |
| When I was first in Czechoslovakia, it occurred to me that I work in a society where as a writer everything goes and nothing matters, while for the Czech writers I met in Prague, nothing goes and everything matters. |
| Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it. |
 | Fiction is the truth inside the lie. — Stephen King, 1947-, American author of horror & fantasy fiction |
 | Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. |
 | You should never do literature, you have to write and it's not the same. |
 | A novel is a meditation on existence seen through imaginary persons. |
| Great novels are always a little smarter than their authors. |
| The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. |
| All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual. |
 | Without literature, life is hell. |
| Only the ancient literature can cure modern itches. |
Funny Quotes
 | Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page. |
 | Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale. |
Movie Quotes
 | - Do you know William Faulkner? - No. Who's he? Have you slept with him? — from the film Breathless (1960) 7 likes |
