Pastoral Resources

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

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

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

I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.

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 of the art of literature.

There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature.

The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.

English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind.

How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question.

In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought.

In the literature of France Moliere occupies the same kind of position as Cervantes in that of Spain, Dante in that of Italy, and Shakespeare in that of England. His glory is more than national - it is universal.

Film is our literature, so we should tell stories that are apropos of our culture, in that we can learn something about ourselves.

I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature.

Take the time to discover how African-Americans have had a great impact on this country. In science, education, literature, art, and politics.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

Literature is my life of course, but from an ontological point of view. From an existential point of view, I like being a teacher.

It's interesting to note that all revolutionary literature was written by pastors. These guys were involved in a revolution against the mightiest power that the world had ever seen.

I have to keep up with the scientific literature as part of my job, but increasingly I found myself reading things that weren't really relevant to my academic work, but were relevant to gardening.