401 Literary Quotes for You to Enjoy

Sex in a woman's world has the same currency a penny has in a man's. Every penny saved is a penny earned in one world and in the next every sexual adventure is a literary experience. Harry Golden

Man Woman Experience World Sex Penny Every Saved Earned Sexual Adventure Same Currency Literary Next

I think that a lot of things are hard to read if you're not in the vocabulary flow of that particular discourse. I sometimes forget that even though the words I'm using are fairly ordinary words, the concepts around which they cluster, which are the long concepts of literary tradition, may not be familiar to an audience. Helen Vendler

You Words Sometimes Long Think Though Vocabulary Particular Concepts Fairly Read Around Audience Tradition Discourse Lot Familiar Forget May Literary Ordinary Which Cluster Hard Using Even Things Flow

The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master. Henry James

Nature Will Face Country Master Field Imagination Elsewhere Our Secrets Worthily More Only Civilization Point Write Well Very Yield Than American Literary Really Certain Certain Point Grasping Even Sufficient Things Need

It's hard to judge literary merit. Henry Rollins

Judge Merit Literary Hard

My first book, 'Nadirs,' was very important for me. I'll leave its literary worth for others to judge. But its publication in Berlin in 1984 gave me protection. As did the awards it won. The Romanian secret police could no longer treat me and my friends as though we were completely cut off from the rest of the world. And we no longer felt cut off. Herta Muller

Me Book Judge World Treat Worth Police Protection Rest First Important Gave Others Secret Though Berlin Could Longer Felt Leave Were Off Won Friends Very Did Literary Cut Publication Awards

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least. Horace

Nine Eye Least Years Literary Public Public Eye Your Kept

As regards literary culture, it fascinates me that it has been so resilient to the Union. For example, when T.S. Eliot wanted to become poet in these lands, it wasn't as an English poet, it was an Anglian poet he wanted to be. Ian Mcewan

Me Culture Example Poet Become Has-Been He For Example Been Wanted Literary Regards Lands English Union Fascinates Resilient

Something is missing in our culture. We can't quite celebrate the scientific literary tradition. Ian Mcewan

Celebrate Culture Our Something Missing Scientific Tradition Quite Literary

The running joke about the Premio Cervantes, the most coveted literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, which was established by Spain's Ministry of Culture in 1976, is that Cervantes himself wouldn't have received it. This is because he was, in his heart, the most anti-Spanish of Spanish writers. Ilan Stavans

I was interned in Auschwitz for one year. I didn't bring back anything, except for a few jokes, and that filled me with shame. Then again, I didn't know what to do with this fresh experience. For this experience was no literary awakening, no occasion for professional or artistic introspection. Imre Kertesz

Sometimes there's a snobbery among literary types that these people don't really get it, but in a lot of ways they get it more than the literati. There's a culture in the background that they understand and know. They get that deeper level. Irvine Welsh

Culture People Sometimes Snobbery Types Background Ways More Know Understand Lot Than Get Literary Really Deeper Deeper Level Among Level

The kind of stuff I usually read is a bit more on the literary side, like books that I think are influential in the sense that they're doing pulpy subject matter in a refined way. Like 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy; I loved that book. Isaac Marion

If fantasy is done well, it has both serious content in a literary fashion and is a really good read as well - and children and young adults won't suffer anything else. Isobelle Carmody

Good Fashion Young Else Both Adult Well Read Content Done Young Adults Children Literary Anything Anything Else Fantasy Really Serious Suffer

On the subject of literary genres, I've always felt that my response to poetry is inadequate. I'd love to be the kind of person that drifts off into the garden with a slim volume of Elizabethan verse or a sheaf of haikus, but my passion is story. J. K. Rowling

Love Garden Passion Slim Response Kind Poetry Volume Genres Felt Always Subject Verse Off Person Literary Story Inadequate Elizabethan

It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series. Jacqueline Carey

Funny Wisdom Gave Finally Spent Embraced Voice Struggling Clean Tendencies Write Writer Prose Suppress Wrote Because Years Up Trying Conventional Literary Conventional Wisdom Spare Naturally Baroque Series

So much of literary sci-fi is about creating worlds that are rich and detailed and make sense at a social level. We'll create a world for people and then later present a narrative in that world. James Cameron

People World Sense Rich Worlds Later Detailed About Make Sci-Fi Narrative Literary Social Then Create Much Creating Level Present

The hoary joke in the literary world, based on 'Dreams From My Father,' was that if things had worked out differently for Barack Obama, he could have made it as a writer. James Fallows

Dreams World Father Made Joke Out Obama Could Writer Had He Literary Barack Barack Obama Worked Based Differently Things

I will not allow people to impose rules on me that don't make sense to me. And I live and work very much outside the literary world and the literary system. What they think and what they believe and what their rules are mean nothing to me. James Frey

One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I find this, however, far from being the case. James Payn

Writing Men Matters Think Difficulty Embarrassment Would Would-Be Find Finding About Case Excess Arise Material However Essay Any Being Literary Literary Men Which Title Might Far

I didn't go to graduate school, where all the important writers seemed to be getting their start. I didn't pursue getting published in literary magazines. I didn't even send out countless pitch letters and manuscripts to agents. Jami Attenberg

I like being able to provide consistent and frequent literary choices for my fans. Janet Evanovich

Fans Consistent Able Like Frequent Provide Being Literary Choices

My father was an engineer - he wasn't literary, not a writer or a journalist, but he was one of the world's great readers. Janet Fitch

Great World Engineer Father Journalist Writer He Readers Literary

Dostoevsky was my literary idol for a long time. Janet Fitch

Time Long Long Time Idol Literary

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