Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity. G K Chesterton, The Defendant
One summer’s day the Reverend Charles Dodgson took ten-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters on a boat trip along the River Thames. The girls were absolutely enchanted by his stories. The Secret World of Lewis Carroll, BBC 2015
What exactly was going on with Carroll’s relationship with children? ibid.
If you try to nail anything down in the novel, either it will kill the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail. D H Lawrence, Phoenix, 1936
Morality in the novel is the trembling instability of the balance. When the novelist puts his thumb in the scale, to pull down the balance to his own predilection, that is immorality. ibid.
Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it. D H Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, 1923
Literature is news that STAYS news. Ezra Pound, The ABC of Reading, 1934
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. Ezra Pound, How to Read, 1931
When I read something saying – I’ve not done anything as good as Catch-22 – I’m tempted to reply, Who has? Joseph Heller, cited The Times 9th June 1993
The web, then, or the pattern; a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation or the art of literature. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Art of Writing
There are two duties incumbent upon any man who enters on the business of writing: truth to the fact and a good spirit in the treatment. Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays Literary and Critical, 1923
A losing trade, I assure you, sir; literature is a drug. George Borrow
The pen is mightier than the sword. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, attributions & variations
We must wash literature off ourselves. We want to be men above all, to be human. Antonin Artaud, 1896-1948, French actor & director & dramatic theorist
What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don’t read the books. A S Byatt
There is nothing outside of the text. Jacques Derrida
Our American professors likes their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead. Sinclair Lewis
In other countries art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business man. Sinclair Lewis
There is perhaps no class of men, to whom the precept given by the Apostle to his converts against too great confidence in their understandings, may be more properly inculcated, that those who are dedicated to the profession of literature. Samuel Johnson, Sermons
There are two things which I am confident I can do very well: one is an introduction to any literary work, stating what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most perfect manner; the other is a conclusion, shewing from various causes why the execution has not been equal to what the author promised to himself and to the public. Samuel Johnson
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables. Samuel Johnson, re literary criticism
Prologues precede the piece – in mournful verse;
As undertakers – walk before the hearse. David Garrick, prologue to Arthur Murphy’s The Apprentice 1756
About your brother’s book – does he actually know any children? Shadowlands ***** 1993 starring Anthony Hopkins & Debra Winger & Edward Hardwicke & Joseph Mazzello & John Wood & Michael Denison et al, director Richard Attenborough, master at table
The most intense joy lies not in the having but in the desiring. ibid. Jack's tutorial with students
It’s just magic. Magic. ibid. Jack’s book
I’m not sure that God particularly wants us to be happy. ibid. Jack’s lecture
Give me blizzards and frozen pipes but not this. Nothing time. Not this. The waiting room of the world. ibid. Jack to Christopher
We live in the shadowlands. The sun is always shining somewhere else. ibid. Jack to student
One has to say things. The moment passes. Then you’re alone again. We read to know we’re not alone. ibid. Jack to student
God knows but does God care? ibid. Jack to masters
We’re the rats in the cosmic laboratory. ibid.
Works of imagination should be written in very plain language. The more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is one of the most perplexing and celebrated unfinished masterpieces in English literature. Alastair Sooke, Unfinished, BBC 2012
What is English Literature? Where is it and how is it there? How does it have its life? Which must be in the present or not at all. And I indicate here how troubling and urgent the questions are. F R Leavis, public lecture, recorded BBC
cf.
On the whole the literary world since roughly the turn of the century has become increasingly anti-social in that just sense ... About the realities of this world, and they are very important realities, on the whole they were on the despairing side. C P Snow, BBC interview
As a form of moral insurance, at least, literature is much more dependable than a system of beliefs or a philosophical doctrine. Joseph Brodsky
The superior man extensively studies literature and restrains himself with the rules of propriety. Thus he will not violate the Way. Confucius, 551-479 B.C.
There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. Thomas de Quincey
The world must be all fucked up when men travel first class and literature goes as freight. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842
Born in Boston in 1809, died in Baltimore in 1849, American writer Edgar Allan Poe is one of the world’s greatest crime and horror authors. His influence on literature extends far beyond the grave. Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Woman, BBC 2013
Poe was embroiled with at least a dozen women. ibid.
His bizarre death ... A failed suicide bid ... He goes on his final drinking binge. ibid.
I think it’s the German army. Shall we let them in? Wodehouse in Exile starring Tim Pigott-Smith & Zoe Wanamaker & Paul Ritter & Flora Montgomery & Richard Dormer & Conor Mullen et al, director Tim Fywell, PG, BBC 2013
Wanamaker: What does he want?
PG: World domination I imagine. ibid.
It can’t be as bad as getting an honorary degree in Oxford. ibid. PG
I’m just a musical comedy man really. ibid.
They’ve used you, Plummy. You’ve been made a fool of. ibid. Wanamaker
I am not a traitor. ibid. PG
You can’t let them see what life does to you. That’s the only way to survive it ... There is a certain dignity to silence. ibid. PG