Literature Quotes

"Each reader as he reads is alone and is also accompanied by the author."

"Do not seek to find reality in books, for books are made of symbols."

"Literature is the most noble of pleasures, but it is also the most demanding."

"The writer's role is to say what he sees."

"A writer's true business is with the truth."

"The very essence of poetry is the utterance of the human heart speaking its deepest truths."

"Literature is the most noble of the arts."

"Literature reflects the soul of a civilization."

"The writer's task is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say."

"The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself."

"Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted."

"The pen is mightier than the sword because it speaks to the soul."

"The power of literature is that it makes the invisible visible."

"The purpose of literature is to reveal the truth of the human condition."

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."

"The talent of a mass writer consists in the ability to please without any quality of excellence."

"I respect him as a historian, but I think he was not a good writer."

"The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words."

"Words are the currency of the dying."

"Literature is the mirror we hold up to ourselves in darkness."

"The greatest pleasure is to study the human heart in all its complications."

"The writer's business is not to judge but to understand."

"To write is to give one's entire self to a page of paper."

"The duty of a writer is to tell the truth as he sees it, consequences be damned."

"Every reader finds himself; the writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument."

"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."

"I wish I loved Henry James as much as I love his work."

"The writer's role is to say what he sees. That is enough."

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

"One does not write in order to be understood; but rather in order to understand."