#literary

And I tell her about his description because I want her to know what I now know, which is that the place where the pepper grows is not a place to be afraid of… I tell her: Mama, exile is not always the darkest corner of the earth. Sometimes it is lush and plentiful, sometimes it is full of life… ↗

— Carola Perla

#historical-fiction #literary-fiction #life

Beware of the man who denounces woman writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell. ↗

— Erica Jong

#literary-criticism #sexism #writer

If you love my work, you are a good critic. If you do not love my work, you are a 'not good' critic. ↗

— Roman Payne

#critics #literary-criticism #payne #roman #love

I love pop culture -- the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that. That's why I said I don't like elitism. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#literary-references #pop-culture #reading #writing #love

Join us. Play the game. It will bring you an untold number of rewards and you will finally have some direction and purpose in your lives. Take control of yourselves and those around you. Bend them to your will and all worldly pleasures will be yours... ↗

— Martin Hopkins

#addiction #crime #edinburgh #erotica #homelessness

Yes, the essence of every love is a child, and it makes no difference at all whether it has ever actually been conceived or born. In the algebra of love a child is the symbol of the magical sum of two beings. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#literary-fiction #sensual #love

Don't ever let anyone tell you that things can't be changed, that things can't be done. The can and they will, if we are united in what we believe. ↗

— F.C. Malby

#literary-fiction #change

I always say, 'Books beat boredom,' said Amanda wisely. ↗

— Mo Willems

#libraries #library #literary #obvious #sage-advice

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell. At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with. This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#literary-fiction #reading #love

In 1925 Woolf began an affair with Sackville-West, who was married to Harold Nicolson, the diplomat and writer, and the development of their close relationship, which does not seem to have undermined either woman’s marriage, coincided with Woolf ’s most productive years as a writer. ↗

— Jane Goldman

#marriage