Trying too hard to be too good, even when trying to be bad, is too good for the bad, too bad for the good.

Our desire to say more grows bigger and what to say about it, except that saying is not always about saying, growing is not always about growing.

If you could have walked on the planet before humans lived here, maybe the Ivory Coast would have seemed more beautiful than La Côte d’Azur.

Get close to grass and you’ll see a star.

Shirley Jackson’s writings are a must for aficionados of the gothic and of good literature.

this is the weakness of most ‘edifying’ or ‘propaganda’ literature. There is no diversity…You cannot, in fact, give God His due without giving the devil his due also.

Jane, be still; don’t struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.””I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with...

In the grand tradition, both Chinese and Western painting have a close link with literature,

The world of literature is a sacred mirror that shows not the reality around us but the dreams and fears that reality stimulates: It’s not where we live, but life itself.

I don’t want to be a vampire’ she told herself. But in her dreams, she kind of did.-Tana Bach-page 29-chapter 4

I drove all night, northeast, and once again I felt it was literature I had been confronting these past days, the archetypes of the dismal mystery, sons and daughters of the archetypes, images that could...

Doğum yapalı bir saat bile olmamıştı. Tom’un nerede olduğunu Tanrı bilir. Narkozdan çıkınca yoğun bir terkedilmişlik hissi içimi kapladı ve hastabakıcıya kız mı oğlan mı diye sordum. Kız olduğunu öğrenince de, arkamı döndüm ve ağladım...

No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise,...

A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.

Gerçek su yüzüne çıkıyor ve hiçbir şey onu durduramayacak. Olay ancak bugün başlıyor, çünkü konumlar ancak bugün açık olarak ortaya çıktı: bir yanda, ışığın parlamasını istemeyen suçlular; öbür yanda ışığın parlaması için canlarını verecek doğrucular....

We human beings build houses because we’re alive but we write books because we’re mortal. We live in groups because we’re sociable but we read because we know we’re alone. Reading offers a kind of...

Apart from such chaotic classics as these, my own taste in novel reading is one which I am prepared in a rather especial manner, not only to declare, but to defend. My taste is for...

Nobody could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing — fortifying and bracing — seemingly just as was wanted...

When my words are concealedWith lies and disguises, truth and beyondInsecurities in the veil of trustBetrayal in bounds of liesIt’s just the charm of words darlingGiving the illusion of happiness inside misery

The morality of art consists, for everyone, in the side that flatters its own interests. People do not like literature.

If you can put your five fingers throught it, it is a gate, if not a door.

I will find you another long-forgotten Queen Mab poem in no time. Depend on it. I refuse to let Cody or anyone else know more about English Literature than me. So calm yourself, Elfish, and...

The American’s literature is all about being hot and sexy, inspiring a girl and going to bed with her. It focuses on being a hero, saving lives and surviving last, but it has nothing to...

All the great novels are about obsession and people who are obsessed.

Experience, then, was something that enabled you to do nothing with a clear conscience. Experience was an overrated quality.

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.

Literature is what’s left standing after the storm.

I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.

Beza membaca karya sastera dengan karya pop adalah penggunaan akal untuk mentafsir.Karya sastera memerlukan ketajaman akal untuk mentafsir. Adakalanya terpaksa mengkaji latar belakang penulisnya semata-mata untuk meneka ‘niat’ sebenar beliau menulis karya tersebut.Cerpen Ragam Dunia...

A force de peindre la vie des autres, il avait oublié de peindre la sienne.”On ne se tue pas pour une femme (2000)

I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

Despite how lonely or broken down you might feel, we need you with us helping to make the world better, kinder and safer, especially for the little girls coming up.

My works are Chinese literature, which is part of world literature. They show the life of Chinese people as well as the country’s unique culture and folk customs.

Of course, there were other sorts of literature — theoretical, self-referencial, lachrymosely autobiographical — but they were just dry wanks.

There is no book so bad it does not contain something good.

I am gone tomorrow. And there and gone again by the time you read this.

At university, one of my areas of study was Victorian literature, so I decided to see if I could write a novel as carefully planned and constructed as those of George Eliot, but with the...

The ‘Muse’ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first...

There are a large number of people in the room, but one is unaware of them. They are in the books. At times they move among the pages, like sleepers turning over between two dreams....

Sentimentality was used because other political avenues were closed, and authors hoped that through it they could bring about a political change that would fulfill the egalitarian promises of the Revolution. Real political venues were...

Sometimes, in the course of my hopeless quest, I would pick up and dip into one of the ordinary books that lay strewn around the castle. Whenever I did, it seemed so insipid and insubstantial...

In the end, you have to choose whether or not to trust someone.

My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger” – Billy Connolly

Literature is like a subtle concoction of laboriously collected peripherals called words, intellect,thoughts,imagination,creativity and aestheticism brewed together to form a resplendent work of art.

She had thought of literature all these years (her seclusion, her rank, her sex must be her excuse) as something wild as the wind, hot as fire, swift as lightning; something errant, incalculable, abrupt, and...

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.

This irritated or puzzled such students of literature and their professors as were accustomed to ‘serious’ courses replete with ‘trends ’ and ‘schools ’ and ‘myths ’ and ‘symbols ’ and ‘social comment ’ and...

I thought a lighthouse is out at sea.

Rainer Maria Rilke greeted and wrestled with the angels of his Duino Elegies in the solitude of a castle surrounded by white cliffs tall trees and the sea. I greeted most of mine in the...

If you are writing a story, miracles or abnormal events may be bad art, or they may not. If, for example, you are writing an ordinary realistic novel and have got your characters into a...