Quotes about Literature

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable

Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.

I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five

Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.

But I will tell you Squire that having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.

Bright people often have a good load to carry. But boredom is seldom a part of it. It's all right. I'm always pleased to see just that small bit deeper. You deny our brotherhood. Insisting as you do in your sly way that our genealogies and our socioeconomic standings have set us apart at birth in a manner not to be contravened. But I will tell you Squire that having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.

Nobody can be more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste than Herman Melville.

The real joy of a book lies in reading it over and over again, and always finding it different, coming upon another meaning, another level of meaning.

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.