Real literature, great literature, moves people.

The memoir by women, read by female readers, is considered a market form, not "great literature."

— Kate Zambreno

Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably…

— Mario Vargas Llosa

Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the…

— William Butler Yeats

This act of empathy, that women go through from the time we're little girls - we read all of literature, all of history, it's…

— Meryl Streep

The most exciting periods of literature have always been those when the critics were great.

— Doris Lessing

Great literature is like moral leadership; everyone deplores the lack of it, but there is a tendency to prefer it from the safely dead.

— Shirley Hazzard

A people may become great through many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final…

— James Weldon Johnson

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

— Pankaj Mishra

“This is the thing about great literature. It reads like truth and sticks to you forever and lets you know that you are not…

— Arlaina Tibensky

Absolutely No doubt: you are a great Literature, but if you Don't Have Been Any Assumptions About social situation, then have been worthless all…

— Mak_786

Oldboy makes us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. It's a grand, gritty, indelible experience, the sort of picture that mimics great…

— Stephanie Zacharek

“Your father may never have produced one of those stuffy tomes we call great literature, but he left the world a substantial collection of…

— David E. Fessenden

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You…

— Saint Augustine

I think you can find all the elements that you can find in great literature in mundane experiences.

— Harvey Pekar

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

— Ezra Pound