#literature

It perhaps might be said--if any one dared--that the most worthless literature of the world has been that which has been written by the men of one nation concerning the men of another. ↗

— Stephen Crane

#value #writing #men

Even great men bow before the Sun; it melts hubris into humility. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#great-men #hubris #humility #literature #literature-quotes

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. ↗

— George Orwell

#literature #writing #writing-craft #motivational

They needed a reason why a little kid would commit murder, someone or something to point the finger at, and I think they were relieved when they hit upon horror movies as the culprit. But there's no reason a child commits murder, just as there's no reason a child gets lost. What would it be - because his parents weren't watching him? That's not a reason, it's just a step in the process. ↗

— Ryū Murakami

#japan #japanese #japanese-literature #murder #movies

I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both. ↗

— Jane Austen

#marianne-dashwood #sense-sensibility #music

The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature. ↗

— Antoine François Prévost

#fathers #french-literature #nature

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#literature #men

We are not native. We have no generations of Americans behind us. We have roots elsewhere. We are looking in from the outside. To me, that seems to be perfectly natural. ↗

— Don DeLillo

#americans #paul-auster #philip-roth #robert-mccrum #nature

It hadn’t always been this way, that’s a cliché, but it is a cliché for a reason. It’s not like anyone starts a relationship with nothing to say to the other person. No-one wants to feel like a complete stranger and live together because it’s easier than trying to remember who owns the copy of Almost Famous – which was mine by the way. ↗

— David Louden

#literature #roman-á-clef #relationship

فكرة الحداثة والعلمانية والتنوير فكرة متأخرة عن الثورة العلمية بقرنيين على الأقل وهي نتيجة الثورة العلمية ومعلولهاوليست شرطها وعلتها ↗

— أبو يعرب المرزوقي

#hermeneutics #intellectual #literature #mind #philosophy