#literature

True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics. ↗

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

#literature

I am a lonely man,' Sensei said. 'And so I am glad that you come to see me. But I am also a melancholy man, and so I asked you why you should wish to visit me so often. ↗

— Sōseki Natsume

#japanese #japanese-literature #loneliness #japan

He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills. ↗

— Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

#japanese #japanese-literature #japan

When you're a kid, getting lost isn't just an event or a situation, it's like a career move. You get this thrill of anxiety and fear and a feeling that you've done something that can never be undone. ↗

— Ryū Murakami

#japanese #japanese-literature #japan

He invited me to his apartment in the wee hours one morning and pulled out a set of children's building blocks. It seems he used to ride around and around on the Yamanote Line with them, building castles on the floor of the train. ↗

— Ryū Murakami

#japanese #japanese-literature #train #yamanote #japan

Say, you told me you thought Les Miserables was the greatest novel ever written. I think Vanity Fair is the greatest. Let's fight. - Joe Willard ↗

— Maud Hart Lovelace

#flirting #vanity

To go where no one else has ever gone before is the secret of heroism. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#heroism #literature #literature-quotes #poetry #poetry-quotes

I don't hold with shamans, witch doctors, or psychiatrists. Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or even Dickens, understood more about the human condition than ever occurred to any of you. You overrated bunch of charlatans deal with the grammar of human problems, and the writers I've mentioned with the essence. ↗

— Mordecai Richler

#literature #psychiatry #grammar

Perfect,” he groaned. “You are perfect.” He sank his teeth into her ass, hard, drawing blood. “And now you wear my mark,” he finished proudly. “Your ass is mine. ↗

— Hanna Lui

#erotic-literature #erotic-romance #erotica #funny #humor

literature is a way in which we can learn to live deeper lives -- husband with wife, parent with child, brother with sister, fellow member with fellow member. Most good authors are better than we are. They are much better company than our own friends. What comes from good company? What comes from good company is better manners, greater sensitivity, greater sensibility, greater empathy, great sympathy. Reading good literature makes us more capable of understanding other people, of loving other people, those whom we don't particularly want to love, even our enemies, as well as those closest to us. How can we expect to have full marriages when we are not going into those marriages with full minds and fine sensibilities? We are ignoring the tremendous possibilities of a delicate, well-poised, rich, sensitive life if we ignore the literature of the past. There is no substitute. ↗

— Arthur Henry King

#literature #family