Post Literature Quotes & Sayings

MERCER USED TO PASS THE TIME, during his post-grad months of flipping burgers out on Route 17, by polishing his opinions on life and literature for that future date when they would grace the pages of The Paris Review. — Garth Risk Hallberg

The most advertised commodity is not always intrinsically the best; but is sometimes merely the product of a company, with plenty of money to spend on advertising. — Emily Post

A dark horse riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winning post, his mane moonflowing, his eyeballs stars. — James Joyce

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
[Kung Fu Monkey
Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009] — John Rogers

When the boys come with the intention of hurting you,
my advice will always stay the same, my darling:
Give 'em hell. — Caitlyn Siehl

The whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music ... it is worth anyone's while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in everything. — James Thurber

I'm equally sure, however, that I won't walk into a lamp-post while reading {literature}, like I did with {a legal thriller} all those years ago; you don't walk into lamp-posts when you're reading literary novels, do you? — Nick Hornby

I refresh Twitter as thoughtlessly as some twirl their hair. — Lena Dunham

It still hurts and I'm bored of the pain. — David Mitchell

I love food. I mean, I really love food. I take pictures of my finest, funniest and most fascinating dishes, post them on Twitter, and send them to friends. I treat menus like classic literature, refusing to skip even one word. I read the description of every item, regardless of whether or not I'm interested in eating it. — Rachel Nichols

The latest literature says we're supposed to call them "post-Kellis-Amberlee amplification manifestation syndrome humans," but fuck that. If they really wanted some fancy new term for "zombie" to catch on, they should have made it easy to shout at the top of your lungs, or at least made sure it formed a catchy acronym — Mira Grant

Isn't post-modernism really one big cover-up for the failure of the French to write a truly interesting novel ever since a sports car ate Albert Camus? — John Leonard

..but I know my commitment to change and transformation is stronger than my commitment to self-destruction. In these moments, the need to rewrite the familiarity of violent reactions and hold oneself accountable becomes increasingly important. Patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism have a way of permeating all of us to our core. It is essential that we are all personally committed to not perpetuating further abuse upon each other's bodies. — Jennifer Patterson

In the 18th century, if women wanted to travel and they dressed as a man, people would not look twice. Your clothes said everything. Also there were masters and servants swapping clothes. You could be anything, your clothes told everything! — Vivienne Westwood

Once he has outgrown his youth, a man will rarely remain a prisoner to his insolence. He had thought it was the only way to behave; then he suddenly discovers that, even for a prince, there are such things as music, literature, not to speak of standing for the post of deputy. — Marcel Proust

You'd always be mourning what once was. It would always be a little bit . . . less. — Jenny Han

Chess hasn't really influenced my literature. It's true, there's a character in Pigeon Post, an old chess player; but it's more of a wink, a self-portrait and not much more. — Dumitru Tepeneag

Literature is literature. Its purpose is to challenge and disorient us, to break us down a little bit so that we are forced to rebuild ourselves. Over time, over the course of many books, we construct a deeper, truer self. — Mark Slouka

An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its 'self-help' section: 'For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it. — Roger Ebert

Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you read, you are limiting yourself. You need to get a good overall sense of English literary history, so you can write out of that knowledge. — Theodora Goss

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Rose, like an exhalation. — John Milton

I do not put myself in a box and say, for instance, I'm writing post-colonial literature. I don't know what I'm writing. That's the business of professors and critics. My job is to tell a story, and that's it. — Isabel Allende

Los Angeles has been good to me. — Lea Michele

I hear what many of you are saying: We don't have the time, we are busy. Well Nobody Has Time, Everyone Is Busy. In the time it took you to read this post, your life just got a minute shorter. That is precisely why we read (and why some of us write): because life is short and finite, we want more, and literature is the distillation of all those lives we will not lead. — Jessica Zafra

In the nights though, I couldn't help but weave the golden cloth of my dreams. Each stitch from heart to thought, and thought to heart, was painful to bear, even if it was joyous at times. Because each thread was fraught with the fears of being broken midway, lost and never found again.
Nida — Faiqa Mansab

I started this dirty quote business when I noticed that I only tend to read authors when their quotes convince me of wit and style. In a world overflowing with bad literature and corrupted product-placement critics the only weapon one has is either word of mouth or quotes, and me I highly prefer the latter. So I have just decided that I will only post to facebook through goodreads quotes. That's policy that makes a lot of sense for a writer. — Martijn Benders

After three years of English at Cambridge, being force-fed literary theory, I was almost convinced that literature was all coded messages about Marxism and the death of the self. I crawled out of the post-structuralist desert thirsty for heroines I could cry and laugh with. I was jaded. I craved trash. — Samantha Ellis

Post-modern intellectuals have pronounced their historical judgment on America's past, finding it to be morally indefensible. Every great human achievement of the past - whether in philosophy, religion, literature, or the humanities - came to be understood as a kind of exploitation of the powerless. Rather than allowing the past to be viewed in terms of its aspirations and accomplishments, it has been judged by its failures. The living part of the past is understood in terms slavery, racism, and identity politics. Political correctness arose as the practical and necessary means of enforcing this historical judgment. No public defense of past greatness could be allowed to live in the present. Public morality and public policy would come to be understood in terms of the formerly oppressed. — John Marini

Middle grade fiction shapes the lives of future adults. It is one of the most powerful forces in literature. Those who use their intellect to create works of fiction for the middle grade audience do so with an incredible privilege and responsibility as authors. For that reason, we are glad to post our reviews of their great efforts here on Goodreads. — Edward Gordon

The 1980s witnessed radical advances in the theorisation of the study of literature in the universities. It had begun in France in the 1960s and it made a large impact on the higher education establishments of Britain and America. New life was breathed into psychoanalytic and Marxist theory, while structuralism gave way to post-structuralism. The stability of the text as a focus of study was challenged by deconstruction, a theory developed by the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, which represented a complete fracture with the old liberal-formalist mode of reading. Coherence and unity were seen as illusory and readers were liberated to aim at their own meanings. Hardy's texts were at the centre of these theoretical movements, including one that came to prominence in the 1980s, feminism. — Geoffrey Harvey

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection. — Neal Boortz

National independence, and the preceding political struggles, helped create the space for literary creation in many post-colonial countries. Much of modern Indian or Chinese literature is inconceivable without the political movement for freedom from foreign rule. — Pankaj Mishra

Post-Modernism was a reaction against Modernism. It came quite early to music and literature, and a little later to architecture. And I think it's still coming to computer science. — Larry Wall