401 Literary Quotes for You to Enjoy

When I write plays, I'm already seeing the shapes on stage, of the actors and their interaction, and so on and so forth. I don't think I've ever written one play as an abstract piece, as a literary piece, floating in the air somewhere, to be flushed out later on. Wole Soyinka

I lost many literary battles the day I read 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical. Zadie Smith

Whether as living humans or as mythological figures, ancestors have always played an important role in the African popular and literary imagination. Sometimes, as in Amos Tutuola's famous short novels, they directly influence events. More often, as in the works of Chinua Achebe, both living and dead ancestors are sages offering valuable advice. Uzodinma Iweala

Events Sometimes Valuable Important Advice Living Imagination Ancestors More Directly Both Mythological Dead Always Important Role Offering Role Often Short African Famous Influence Literary Whether Figures Popular Works Novels Played Humans

People should have literary and cultural taste and should not bomb hotels. Upamanyu Chatterjee

People Hotels Cultural Taste Literary Should Bomb

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak. Salman Rushdie

Art You Fool Yourself Lie Speak Better Seriously Mouth Back Would Would-Be Self-Censorship Trying Did Going Censor Hold Literary Decide Then Create Your Shut Kept

In the time it takes American literary titan William H. Gass to write a novel, other artists have been born, completed their life's work and died. That may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one. Tony D'Souza

Life Work Time Exaggeration Other Completed Slight William Born Only Write Takes Been American Died May Artists Literary Novel

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing. Salman Rushdie

Best Nothing Think I Think Say Critics About Know Literary

Memoir is a difficult literary form to pull off when dealing with discrete and poignant moments in a life, even harder when seeking to narrate over 80 years of existence. Uzodinma Iweala

Life Difficult Memoir Seeking Poignant Over Dealing Years Existence Off Discrete Form Literary Moments Even Harder Pull

Science fiction writers have usually been very poor prognosticators of the future, either in literary or technological terms, and that's because we're all too human and, I think, have the tendency to see what we want to or, in the case of those more paranoid, what we fear. L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Future Science Fear Think Too I Think Those See Paranoid Case More Tendency Writers Terms Because Science Fiction Science Fiction Writers Been Very Human Want Fiction Fiction Writers Literary Either Poor Technological

Anyone who undertakes the literary grind had better like playing around with words. Roy Blount, Jr.

Words Better Had Like Around Anyone Literary Grind Who Playing

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