#literature

There's all this stuff that is happening in Edinburgh now, it's a sad attempt to create an Edinburgh society, similar to a London society, a highbrow literature celebrity society. ↗

— Irvine Welsh

#celebrity #create #edinburgh #happening #highbrow

In fact I enjoyed every minute of my life at King's, especially the discovery of French and German literature. ↗

— Patrick White

#enjoyed #especially #every #fact #french

In life there are two things which are dependable. The pleasures of the flesh and the pleasures of literature. ↗

— Sei Shōnagon

#life #literature #pleasure #life

It is not certain whether the effects of totalitarianism upon verse need be so deadly as its effects on prose. There is a whole series of converging reasons why it is somewhat easier for a poet than a prose writer to feel at home in an authoritarian society.[...]what the poet is saying- that is, what his poem "means" if translated into prose- is relatively unimportant, even to himself. The thought contained in a poem is always simple, and is no more the primary purpose of the poem than the anecdote is the primary purpose of the picture. A poem is an arrangement of sounds and associations, as a painting is an arrangement of brushmarks. For short snatches, indeed, as in the refrain of a song, poetry can even dispense with meaning altogether. ↗

— George Orwell

#literature #orwell #poet #poetry #prose

Intimate relationships are a gold mine for literature to explore, to understand, to describe. ↗

— A. B. Yehoshua

#explore #gold #intimate #literature #mine

Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad. ↗

— Kingsley Amis

#hangover #humor #literature #humor

Pay attention, and use your imagination. ↗

— R.M. Engelhardt

#on-writing #poetry #r-m-engelhardt #writing-life #imagination

Truth is hard-hearted and unrelenting, too clear, precise; a lie is much more imaginative. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#clear #dejan-stojanovic #hard-hearted #imagination #imaginative

I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots. ↗

— Andrea Koehle Jones

#children-s-books #children-s-literature #roots #strength-of-character #tree-of-life

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice—ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much—ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain. ↗

— Wilkie Collins

#life