literature
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
“If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.”
“Literature is a living art; therefore it must be personal and of its essence personal.”
“There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power.”
“Make it new.”
“Literature is news that stays news.”
“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”
“I am nothing. I will never be anything. I cannot wish to be anything. Apart from that, I have within me all the dreams of the world.”
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.”
“Call me Ishmael.”
“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
“Only connect!”
“I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail.”
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”
“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”
“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met.”
“The original is unfaithful to the translation.”
“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”