Literature and Words

How do I know what I have to say until I see what I have said? E. M.

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imaginations, we learned to talk.

I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our own particular path than we have yet got ourselves. E. M.

 

The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its own particular way.

 

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. J. R. R.

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

 

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.

 

“Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are” is true enough, but I’d know you better if you told me what you reread.

The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them.

For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

A great novel is a kind of conversion experience. We come away from it changed.

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH ADVERBS.

A louse in the locks of literature.

 

God-gifted organ-voice of England,

 

For words, like Nature, half reveal

 

There are various forms of production: artillery, automobiles, lorries. You also produce ‘commodities’, ‘works’, ‘products’. Such things are highly necessary. Engineering things. For people’s souls. ‘Products’ are highly necessary too. ‘Products’ are very important for people’s souls. You are engineers of human souls.

 

The two cultures and the scientific revolution.

 

The two hours’ traffick of our stage.

 

His nose was as sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields.

 

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

 

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder

 

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

 

At non effugies meos iambos.