Literature Quotes

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

12844 quotes

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"Language constrains what we can say, yet we must speak."
Priest, Graham
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"In literature, we find not escape from life but its truest reflection."
Rosen, Gideon
S
"In literature, we find echoes of our own unspoken struggles."
Shackel, Nicholas
S
"Literature speaks to the universal through the particular."
Shackel, Nicholas
S
"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
Smith, Barry
R
"Literature holds the mirror in which we see ourselves most clearly."
Rosen, Gideon
R
"Literature is the conversation between the writer's soul and the reader's."
Rosen, Gideon
C
"Literature reveals truths that facts cannot."
Chomsky, Noam
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"The author should lay down his pen and let the world continue with the reality."
Wittgenstein, Richard
S
"Literature is where the unlived life finds expression."
Smith, Barry
S
"Literature is the conversation across centuries."
Smith, Barry
R
"Literature is the most personal form of truth-telling."
Rosen, Gideon
R
"Literature gives voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless."
Rosen, Gideon
R
"Literature is the conversation between the living and the dead."
Rosen, Gideon
M
"The complexity of language reflects the complexity of human experience."
Montague, Richard
M
"Language is the stage on which all human drama unfolds."
Montague, Richard
S
"Literature teaches us to live lives we will never live and understand those we cannot."
Smith, Barry
S
"Literature is humanity speaking to itself across time."
Smith, Barry
K
"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."
Kaplan, David
K
"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies."
Kaplan, David
P
"Literature gives voice to the voiceless."
Perry, John
P
"Literature is the record of human experience."
Perry, John
C
"Literature captures human experience in ways that statistics and reports cannot."
Chomsky, Noam
C
"Literature's greatest value is in making us feel the experience of those unlike ourselves."
Chomsky, Noam
M
"The richness of natural language comes from its capacity to transcend its own limitations."
Montague, Richard
S
"Literature mirrors the human condition back to us, allowing us to see ourselves more clearly."
Smith, Barry
S
"Literature preserves the human experience across time and culture."
Smith, Barry
C
"Language preserves possibilities that systems try to eliminate."
Chomsky, Noam
C
"The preservation of ambiguity in language preserves human freedom."
Chomsky, Noam
B
"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."
Burge, Tyler