Literature Quotes

"The writers who have most profoundly influenced me are those who have risked themselves."

"The act of writing is an act of rebellion against silence and forgetting."

"I believe the role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say."

"Classics are authors who have been approved by the centuries."

"To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company."

"The elegance of a literary style, like that of a dress, consists in its simplicity."

"Every reader finds himself; the book is a mere looking glass."

"A book is a dream we enter through the eyes."

"Literature is a form of resistance against tyranny."

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

"In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself."

"Writing is like a man who is pregnant and in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with himself."

"A writer is not someone who writes to make money, but someone who must write."

"Literature is humanity's conversation with itself across time."

"The purpose of literature is not to provide answers but to reveal the complexity of human existence."

"I am a writer; therefore, I am a human being who thinks with and through language."

"The function of the writer is to expose the lies of power and speak uncomfortable truths."

"If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy."

"Writing is the painting of the voice."

"The pen is the tongue of the mind."

"Fiction is a lie that makes truth vivid."

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

"The most important literature is not contemporary; it is eternal."

"The difficulty of literature is not in writing, but in ceasing to write."

"To hold a pen is to be at war."

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

"The purpose of a writer is to say the unsayable."

"The goal of poetry is truth; the goal of prose is clarity."

"Literature is the essence of human liberty."

"Language shapes reality as much as reality shapes language."