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Literature Quotes

On memory, genre, and what counts as literature.

These literature quotes take literature seriously as a form worth defending, including genres like horror that sometimes get dismissed too quickly. Memory comes up more than once, treated almost as literature's core material. The theme pairs with Art quotes, covering creative work more broadly.

A script is not a piece of literature it's a process.

Quotes by Abel Ferrara

I read a lot of war literature.

Quotes by Aaron Stanford

I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.

Quotes by A. S. Byatt

Intimate relationships are a gold mine for literature to explore, to understand, to describe.

Quotes by A. B. Yehoshua

Always Quotes

I have always been an avid reader of chemical literature, eager for what is new.

Quotes by Yves Chauvin

Literature has to serve as a moral control of politics.

Quotes by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.

Quotes by William O. Douglas

Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.

Quotes by William Inge

The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.

Quotes by Willa Cather

American Quotes

Literature throws us many great heroes. Real life invariably outdoes them.

Quotes by Wilbur Smith

I'm not so sure that horror should be dismissed as something less than literature.

Quotes by Whitley Strieber

Literature is memory written down. All literature is memory.

Quotes by Wayne Grady

Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility.

Quotes by Wallace Stevens

As life grows more terrible, its literature grows more terrible.

Quotes by Wallace Stevens

Art Quotes

The crown of literature is poetry.

Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

There is only one school of literature - that of talent.

Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.

Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

Perhaps no General Council has been more naturally fitted than the Vatican Council to produce a masterpiece of religious thought and literature. No assembly of men since the time of Christ has ever been so representative of Christian and national...

Quotes by Vincent McNabb

Music enriches people's lives in the same way paintings and literature do. Everybody deserves that.

Quotes by Victoria Wood

Great Quotes

I gradually became persuaded that the subjects, without intending to, had revealed to me a basic truth about markets that was foreign to the literature of economics.

Quotes by Vernon L. Smith

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a quote defending horror as literature?
Yes: "I'm not so sure that horror should be dismissed as something less than literature" — a direct pushback against ranking horror below other genres.
What does "Literature is memory written down" mean?
It's a compact definition: "Literature is memory written down. All literature is memory." — treating writing as fundamentally an act of preserving what's remembered.
Is there a quote connecting literature's tone to the state of the world?
Yes: "As life grows more terrible, its literature grows more terrible" — suggesting literature tends to mirror the darkness of the times that produce it.
What does this page say about American literature's relationship to English literature?
One quote argues they're fundamentally different: "Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility" — presented as that writer's own view on American literary identity.
Where can I find more quotes about art or American culture?
Art quotes covers creative work more broadly, while American quotes pairs well with the literature quotes discussing national identity here.

One line argues American literature owes little to its English roots, a sharper claim about literary identity than most quote collections make. See American or Great quotes for related cultural reflection.