Literature Quotes

Books change lives. Authors and readers reflect on the power of the written word.

12844 quotes

D
"Literature is the window through which we see other souls."
Dino Buzzati
D
"Literature preserves the soul of humanity across time."
Dino Buzzati
"Literature is the mirror in which we see ourselves most clearly."
Italo Svevo
E
"The writer must possess a profound sense of responsibility toward truth and the human condition."
Elsa Morante
E
"Language is both the bridge and the barrier between souls."
Elsa Morante
U
"Books are a uniquely portable magic."
Umberto Eco
U
"Every reader as he reads is thus a reader of himself."
Umberto Eco
U
"Texts are secret labyrinths of meaning."
Umberto Eco
U
"Literature is the most honest of all forms of art."
Umberto Eco
P
"Literature is a conversation between the dead and the living."
Pier Paolo Pasolini
P
"The act of writing becomes a form of resistance against oblivion."
Primo Levi
P
"Storytelling is humanity's most fundamental survival mechanism."
Primo Levi
P
"The survival of culture matters as much as physical survival."
Primo Levi
P
"The power of words lies in their ability to reach across time."
Primo Levi
I
"If a book exists for you, you don't have to read the book."
Italo Calvino
I
"The narrative path is not a matter of inventing complications but of discovering and displaying the texture of relationships."
Italo Calvino
I
"Every life is a story, but not every story tells a life."
Italo Calvino
I
"What is the point of a story unless it is to make us see ourselves differently?"
Italo Calvino
I
"The book is a thing of memory and oblivion."
Italo Calvino
I
"Literature is the most effective way to transport consciousness."
Italo Calvino
I
"The book is a mirror held up to the world."
Italo Calvino
I
"What we find in books is not the world but ourselves."
Italo Calvino
E
"To write is to confess that you are afraid of being forgotten."
Elsa Morante
"Literature is life filtered through consciousness"
Italo Svevo
C
"The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe."
Cesare Pavese
C
"A writer is first of all a man who is passionately in love with language."
Cesare Pavese
C
"To write is to confess ignorance and to learn."
Cesare Pavese
C
"A land without stories is a land without a soul."
Cesare Pavese
D
"Literature is the mirror in which we see our own abyss."
Dino Buzzati
D
"Literature is where we go when life becomes unbearable."
Dino Buzzati