Literature and Words

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

No intelligent man will ever be so bold as to put into language those things which his reason has contemplated.

It seems to me that many fall into it even against their will, and fancy they are discussing, when they are merely debating, because they cannot distinguish the meanings of a term, in their investigation of any question, but carry on their opposition to what is stated, by attacking the mere words, employing the art of debate, and not that of philosophical discussion.

I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it.

Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.

Books are immortal sons defying their sires.

At the touch of love, Everyone becomes a poet.

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’ . . . In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt, and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

Fiction is nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examination and self-display that mankind has invented yet.

Fiction is the higher autobiography.

Fiction is Truth’s elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till somebody had told a story.

In the spider-web of facts, many a truth is strangled.

There is no such thing as “the Queen’s English.” The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

English, no longer an English language, now grows from many roots; and those whom it once colonized are carving out large territories within the language for themselves. The Empire is striking back.

I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

It is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be in the grasp of superficially educated people.

Modern English is the Wal-Mart of languages: convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly, and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand.

Eloquence is a painting of thought.

Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.

Eloquence lies as much in the tone of the voice, in the eyes, and in the speaker’s manner, as in his choice of words.

Eloquence is feeling pouring itself to other minds, courting their sympathy.

Eloquence may set fire to reason.

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding.