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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #liter
To the jaded eye, all vampires seem alike, but they are wonderful in their versatility. Some come to life in moonlight, others are killed by the sun, some pierce with their eyes, others with fangs, some are reactionary, others are rebels, but all are disturbingly close to the mortals they prey on. I can think of no other monsters who are so receptive. Vampires are neither inhuman nor nonhuman nor all-too-human, they are simply more alive than they should be. ↗
Could a literary life be referred to with the iambic pentameter of, say, harnessing wind power, transplanting hearts or saving the whales. Or did it necessitate the sombre and monotonous dirge of software, priority banking or turbine building. ↗
Lady #1, Maki, had never once given any thought to what was really right for her in her life, simply believing that if she surrounded herself with super-exclusive things, she'd become a super-exclusive person. ↗
It's odd to imagine, of course: you pass a car on a lonely rural highway; you sit beside a man in a diner and share views with him; you wait behind a customer checking into a motel, a friendly man with a winning smile and twinkling hazel eyes, who's happy to fill you in on his life's story and wants you to like him - odd to think this man is cruising around with a loaded pistol, making up his mind about which bank he'll soon rob.' - Richard Ford, Canada ↗
Movements in literature were not caricatures - in the sense that they actually functioned as an ideology in politics does. As now a monopolistic ideology in politics prevails in the literature as well a single movement prevails: that of networking as a literary quality. Quality = networking is the magic formula: take a Krijn Peter Hesselink, never managed to score a positive review but reviews are old news: it is only referential authority trickling down from that network pyramid that counts. Thus, nowadays its perfectly possible to be on top of the Pyramid without ever getting a positive review, or - even worse - I even see people rising in literary ranks that have never written any books at all. Ergo, your point that another ideology would make a 'caricature' of literary history is exactly the same reasoning used by neoliberals to deconstruct any political change: another ideology? Impossible, because they no longer exist, only we still exist. In this way you get a pyramid shape you also see in popular music. It's still the bands from the 70's and 80's who earn the big money. New talent can't really play ball anymore. This of course embedded in a sauce of eternal talent shows, because the incumbent males have to just keep pretending they are everyone's benefactors. In the literature its the same: it is still Pfeijffer that gets the large sums of money from the Foundation of Literature, and it's still Samuel Vriezen pretending that that doesn't matter. 'Controversy' therefore structurally undesirable. After all, it would require a redistribution of power. The pyramid is especially interested in promoting mediocre types that promote safe and boring life visions, because then one ever needs to fear for his position, which, in case of serious controversy, they'd be forced to defend. Ergo, 100 interviews with Maria Barnas, and zero with Martinus Benders. ↗
Books are in the mind, Grandfather Alessandro said. Too many books and you forget your body is in the world. ↗
The significant difference between Proust and Faulkner, for Sartre, is that where Proust discovers salvation in time, in the recovery of time past, for Faulkner time is never lost, however much he may want, like a mystic, to forget time. Both writers emphasize the transitoriness of emotion, of the condition of love or misery, or whatever passes because it is transitory in time. "Proust really should have employed a technique like Faulkner's," Sartre legislates, "that was the logical outcome of his metaphysic. Faulkner, however, is a lost man, and because he knows that he is lost he risks pushing his thoughts to its conclusion. Proust is a classicist and a Frenchman; and the French lose themselves with caution and always end by finding themselves. ↗
#love
Which is probably one of the reasons those of us who love contemporary fiction love it as we do. We’re alone with it. It arrives without references, without credentials we can trust. Givers of prizes (not to mention critics) do the best they can, but they may—they probably will—be scoffed at by their children’s children. We, the living readers, whether or not we’re members of juries, decide, all on our own, if we suspect ourselves to be in the presence of greatness. We’re compelled to let future generations make the more final decisions, which will, in all likelihood, seem to them so clear as to produce a sense of bafflement over what was valued by their ancestors; what was garlanded and paraded, what carried to the temple on the shoulders of the wise. ↗
#love
I loved her; I didn’t know how to say it without breaking down the autobot façade she saw before her and revealing the ugly and scarred wreck that lived within my skin. So I played with the radio instead. ↗
Βλέπεις όμως, Ισμηνάκι μου, η ελευθερία είναι πιο δυνατή από την αγάπη, γιατί η αγάπη είναι κόρη της. Είναι ο καθρέφτης της, οι δυο όψεις της ζωής, που έλκονται και απωθούνται, όπως θα έλεγε και ο Αρχιτέκτονας στη γλώσσα της επιστήμης. Γιατί αγάπη χωρίς ελευθερία είναι φωτιά χωρίς ανάσα, και ελευθερία χωρίς αγάπη είναι μοναξιά του κερατά. Έτσι, αγάπη που περιορίζει την ελευθερία, γεννά την αγάπη για την ελευθερία. "Αυτό το παιχνίδι δίνει το ρυθμό του κόσμου", όπως μου 'λεγε τις προάλλες ο Φιλόσοφος. ↗
