Unliterary Quotes & Sayings

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only ... We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness. — C.S. Lewis

When Darkness Comes — Alexandra Ivy

Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul - what could be more worthy of our respect, and even love? — Salman Rushdie

A leader or mentor gives credit to others when things go right, and accepts the blame when things go wrong. — Bill Courtney

Folklore is artistic communication in small groups. — Dan Ben-Amos

Theory sometimes seems to me a way of taking revenge on literature - the critic masters the text and rewrites it in his own image, instead of submitting to it and listening to what it has to say. The aggressive ungainliness of so much academic writing about literature is a sign of this - it is unliterary writing about literature, which should be a contradiction in terms. — Adam Kirsch

I used to be more of a purist about literature. I thought, 'If it's a really propulsive story, then maybe there's something unliterary about it.' — Steven Heighton

The Stylemonger's criteria, though for a different reason, are as wide of the mark as those of the law, and in the same way. If the mass of the people are unliterary, he is antiliterary. He creates in the minds of the unliterary (who have often suffered under him at school) a hatred of the very word style and a profound distrust of every book that is said to be well written. And if style meant what the Stylemonger values, this hatred and distrust would be right. The — C.S. Lewis

Plots may be simple or complex, but suspense, and climactic progress from one incident to another, are essential. Every incident in a fictional work should have some bearing on the climax or denouement, and any denouement which is not the inevitable result of the preceding incidents is awkward and unliterary. — H.P. Lovecraft

The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers "I've read it already" to be a conclusive argument against reading a work ... Those read great works,on the other hand will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of there life. — C.S. Lewis

I'm still strong and in the best shape to continue living my life. — Compay Segundo