#era

But if I am not a criminal, I beg to be permitted to go abroad with my wife temporarily, for at least one year, with the right to return as soon as it becomes possible in our country to serve great ideas in literature without cringing before little men, as soon as there is at least a partial change in the prevailing view concerning the role of the literary artist. (“Letter To Stalin”) ↗

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

#dissident #expatriate #lierature #writing #art

Stupid male ego. ↗

— Tera Lynn Childs

#funny #stupid-male-ego #tera-lynn-childs #forgiveness

Coffee is a beverage that puts one to sleep when not drank. ↗

— Alphonse Allais

#coffee #drank #puts #sleep

The Postmodernists' tyranny wears people down by boredom and semi-literate prose. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#literature #postmodernism #humor

I have this desire to have this immaculate form of love that really doesn't exist, so my obsession goes on through life and I never find it and I end up miserable. But it makes me a better writer. ↗

— Angel Haze

#desire #end #exist #find #form

You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#fathers #generations #knowledge #relationships #sons

Elaborate burial customs are a sure sign of decadence. ↗

— J.G. Ballard

#death #decadence #funerals #death

Orlando said it was important for scientists to have minds kept open by literature, and souls touched by the creativity of art. ↗

— Megan Frazer Blakemore

#literature #art

Literary art's sudden, startling truth and beauty make us feel, in the most solitary part of us, that we are not alone, and that there are meanings that cannot be bought, sold or traded, that do not decay and die. This socially and economically worthless experience is called transcendence, and you cannot assign a paper, or a grade, or an academic rank, on that. Literature is too sacred to be taught. It needs only to be read. ↗

— Lee Siegel

#literature #art

Haven't had your fill of interesting events?" "Never. They are the spice of life." She held up her half-finished hat. "How do you like it?" "It's nice. The blue is pretty. But what do the runes say?" "Raxacori-Oh, never mind. It wouldn't mean a thing to you anyway. Safe travels to you and Saphira, Eragon. And remember to watch out for earwigs and wild hamsters.  Ferocious things, wild hamsters."  ↗

— Christopher Paolini

#christopher-paolini #earwigs #eragon #hat #life