Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Literature Quotes
FictionHuman NatureLiteratureSelf-ExpressionTruth The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.
ArtLiteratureMusicMysticismPoetry The mystical poetry of William Blake's artwork also forms the basis for the album cover.
CreativityImaginationInnovationLiteratureWorldview I love J. G. Ballard. I love authors who take the world as we know it and just tweak one thing and say, 'What if the world were like this?'
CriticismHumorLiteraturePerspectiveTolerance Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
ImaginationLiteratureTruthWisdom All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.
ArtsCitizenshipCultureDutyLiterature To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.
CreativityDeterminismHuman NatureLiteraturePsychology It is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is because of faulty wiring, or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day.
ArtCreativityExpressionLiteratureSound I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.
CommunicationCriticismExpressionLiteratureSelf-awareness Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed.
DiscernmentLiteratureTruth Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.
AmbitionAspirationCreativityDreamsLiterature I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf.
AestheticsAuthenticityCultural ChangeLiteraturePerception of Quality I had started to feel that somewhere in the second half of the 20th century, the idea of page-turning as a good thing had been lost. You were getting books that were the equivalent of absolutely beautifully prepared dishes of food that didn't taste like anything much.
HumorLiteraturePhilosophyPoetryReligion And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.
CreativityEducationExpressionInfluenceLiterature At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write. Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.
ArtExpressionImaginationLiteraturePhilosophy A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.
LiteratureMindSoulSpirituality Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and - since there is no other metaphor - also the soul.
CultureExperienceGenerationsLiteratureMemory Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
CreativityFlexibilityInnovationLiteratureStorytelling I don't plot my books rigidly, follow a preconceived structure. A novel mustn't be a closed system - it's a quest.
AdaptationAuthor's ViewsLiteraturePoliticsQuality I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views.
FoundationInfluenceLiteratureRace RelationsRepresentation All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.
CommunicationGoalsLiteraturePersonal InterestsWork and Projects Over the years, people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.
AdmirationInfluenceLiteraturePersonal ConnectionRespect I knew William Burroughs really well, and I was always star struck being around him. I adored him.
Civic KnowledgeDemocracyGovernmentIntellectualismLiterature I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read 'Democracy in America' by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.
CreativityCritiqueHumanityLiteratureReading I read a lot of script. In my opinion, most of them aren't good or aren't about people.
CommunicationCreativityCuriosityImaginationLiterature As a teenager I wrote to R.A. Lafferty. And he responded, too, with letters that were like R.A. Lafferty short stories, filled with elliptical answers to straight questions and simple answers to complicated ones.
ComicsFavorite AuthorsLiteratureReading HabitsScottish Writers I read tons of comic books. My favourite is Grant Morrison, a Scottish comic writer.