Literary Quotes

There's no literary merit in my books.

— Clive Cussler

“Editors are the literary surgeons of the world.”

— Suzanne Steele

There can be no literary equivalent to truth.

— Laura Riding

Suggestion is a literary strategy.

— Samuel R. Delany

Life without literary studies is death.

— Seneca the Younger

Literary theories will not make a writer write.

— Allen Wier

Literary critics make natural detectives.

— Anonymous

“There is no rest for the literary!”

— Scott Toney

Metaphor is not, and never has been, a mere literary term. It is an event.

— Mary Ruefle

Literary prizes serve a purpose if they allow for discussion of books.

— Richard Flanagan

A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate.

— Anonymous

“Carry out your literary dream no matter how unlikely it may seem.”

— Terry a O'Neal

I wanted to be a literary writer, so I wrote story after story and sent them to 'The New Yorker.'

— Diane Mott Davidson

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

— Rick Perlstein

Most of the literary classics are worth reading, if you've nothing better to do.

— Edward Abbey

“What do you mean to do?' 'Make literary history, I guess.”

— Paula McLain

“The true aim of literary studies is to lift the student out of his provincialism by making him ‘the spectator’, if not…

— C.S. Lewis

In the modern world, all literary art is necessarily political -- especially that which pretends not to be.

— Edward Abbey

Complex literary works demand an effort from the reader that is becoming harder to justify, given the sink-or-swim pressures to make profitable…

— Joanna Scott

“You can’t save anyone who wouldn’t save themselves without you. It’s the hardest lesson to learn in life, take it from me.”

— Marc Jampole

“As it stands there is a very strong argument that as the book trade becomes increasingly corporate it's our literary heritage that…

— Sara Sheridan

If literary fiction is reduced to only middle-class families dealing only with middle-class angst, then it’s really finished as a force for…

— J. M. Ledgard

I know that at literary festivals I'm speaking mostly to middle-class women, who frequently vote in a way that is contrary to…

— Elliot Perlman

It's not as if I've been unlucky. My books have been published and reviewed. I haven't lived through terrible literary suffering!

— Siri Hustvedt

If any imagine from the literary tone of the preceding remarks that we are indifferent to the radical movement for the benefit…

— George Ripley

Of all the species of literary composition, perhaps biography is the most delightful. The attention concentrated on one individual gives a unity…

— Robert Hall

Which is the healthier kind of literary diversity: an un-gate-kept self-published book world, run substantially through Amazon? Or our current book world,…

— Lev Grossman

The thing is, if you make best-sellerdom your goal, you're going to be in trouble. It's a very nice thing to have…

— Diane Mott Davidson

I changed my writing style deliberately. My first two novels were written in a very self-consciously literary way. After I embraced gay…

— Edmund White

“Stepping forward, Girl stares out the doorway, into the sun. “I used to tread the world freely in Mira,” she smiles gently.…

— Susan L. Marshall

One's politics are part of one even when one is writing. But if I want to say anything about the state of…

— Thomas Mallon

For a decade, Emma-Lee Moss has been steadily making weird, moody, melancholic music under the moniker 'Emmy the Great' that has been…

— Jenny Zhang

“In a world of watered-down bestsellers and formula novels, Hitching to Nirvana eases back just enough to show the blade which cuts…

— CAConrad

If I had a staff of even one person, or could tolerate a small amphetamine habit, or entertain the possibility of weekly…

— Lorrie Moore

Considering that "literary fiction" is a sub-genre that's not quite the same as "literature," either, it follows that the short, semi-humorous bits…

— Lee Klein

“I am a bomb but I mean you no harm. That I still am here to tell this, is a miracle: I…

— Marcus Speh

I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a…

— Sol Stein

“The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialized to be tackled by the…

— Jasper Fforde

“Literary criticism, as I attempt to practice it, is in the first place 'literary', which is to say personal and passionate. It…

— Harold Bloom

“Then, in an unusual moment, she grew emotional, which left little doubt about the level of profound respect and admiration Merkel had…

— Claudia Clark