#literature

The true reader reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. But for that very reason he cannot possibly read every work solemly or gravely. For he will read 'in the same spirit that the author writ.'... He will never commit the error of trying to munch whipped cream as if it were venison. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#books #criticism #humor #interpretation #literature

But you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No. ↗

— David Mitchell

#literature #humor

Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment. ↗

— Jane Austen

#literature #love #marianne-dashwood #quote #sense-sensibility

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. ↗

— Zora Neale Hurston

#women #love

Había leído lo bastante como para apreciar mi ingenio literario, pero no lo bastante como para identificar mis fuentes de conocimiento. Me encantan las mujeres así. Podía decirle cosas como: "La principal diferencia entre la felicidad y la alegría es que la felicidad es sólida, mientras que la alegría es líquida" y, escudándome en su ignorancia de Salinger, sentirme ingenioso, seductor y, porqué no decirlo, joven. Notaba que Ernie me miraba fijamente mientras yo me daba pisto, pero qué diablos, pensaba yo. Un hombre tiene derecho a flirtear. ↗

— David Mitchell

#español #flirting #literatura #literature #literature-quotes

In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it has always been--it may even be greater--for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own. ↗

— Margaret Wise Brown

#children #children-s-literature #stress

Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination. ↗

— Anthony Burgess

#j-g-ballard #literature #science-fiction #writing #imagination

In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought. ↗

— Lytton Strachey

#century #domain #eighteenth #eighteenth century #great

Film is our literature, so we should tell stories that are apropos of our culture, in that we can learn something about ourselves. ↗

— David Strathairn

#culture #film #learn #literature #our

Did you know, that one night; one moonless, clear, shining night; with the shadowy silhouettes of trees crisp against the star-filled sky – I, on the high, level terrace of my flat, stretched out my hand! Against all odds and possibilities of unbelief and grief – a life of searchings, discontent, and a nagging sense of unreality… A spider-web intuition of a spread-out, intricate illusion that wilfully withheld the truth from me. ↗

— Radhika Mukherjee

#longing #our-particular-shadows #questioning #radhika-mukherjee #beauty