Drama - what literature does at night.

“Getting dark now; always does at night.”

— C.S. Lewis

I soon realized that a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is…

— Northrop Frye

National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten thearrival of…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“What good literature can do and does do—far greater than any importation of morality—is touch the human soul.”

— Karen Swallow Prior

If literature does one thing, it makes you more empathetic by making you live other lives and feel the pain of others. Ideologues don't…

— Yann Martel

Reality deals in specifics under the guise of generalities. Literature does the contrary...

— Alberto Manguel

The sensuality, delicacy of literature does not exist for me; only the passion, energy and struggle… Most of my friends deplore this: they are…

— Christina Stead

Any writer worth his salt knows that only a small proportion of literature does nore than partly compensate people for the damage they have…

— Rebecca West

Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it.

— Witold Gombrowicz

The dominant question for us with regard to literature has become, 'What does this have to do with me, with life as I know…

— Elif Batuman

Writers throughout the ages have one weapon, which is literature, but they also have their responsibilities as a citizen when literature does not seem…

— Wole Soyinka

Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is…

— Ezra Pound

Literature cannot develop between the categories "permitted"—"not permitted"—"this you can and that you can't." Literature that is not the air of its contemporary society,…

— Anonymous

...the tale that's told for no other reason but companionship, which is another (and my favorite) definition of literature, the tale that's told for…

— Jack Kerouac

“There is a literature that does not reach the voracious mass. It is the work of creators, issued from a real necessity in the…

— Tristan Tzara