--- title: "10 Comparative literature Quotes by 10 authors" description: "Browse 10 Comparative literature quotes by 10 authors. Discover the best Comparative literature sayings and thoughts." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b15/nicolas-cage-1199_accents_god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke_830868.jpg" --- > [God bless my father, but he always spoke in this continental, literary accent, probably because he was a professor of comparative literature…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nicolas-cage/god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke-in-this-continental-literary/) [Nicolas Cage](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/nicolas-cage/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b15/nicolas-cage-1199_accents_god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke_830868.jpg) > [If a comparative-literature major had existed at Harvard College for undergraduates I would have surely gone in that direction.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/louis-begley/if-a-comparative-literature-major-had-existed-at-harvard-college-for/) [Louis Begley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/louis-begley/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/713/louis-begley-43300_college_if-a-comparative-literature-major-had-ex_568768.png) > [The phrase I like to use to describe my sense of time-a play on comparative literature - is comparative time.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/yehuda-amichai/the-phrase-i-like-to-use-to-describe-my-sense-of-time-a-play-on/) [Yehuda Amichai](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/yehuda-amichai/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b5a/yehuda-amichai-15231_books_the-phrase-i-like-to-use-to-describe-my_2425645.jpg) > [I went to Princeton to major in comparative literature. I never went to film school, but I studied storytelling across mediums -…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/elizabeth-chai-vasarhelyi/i-went-to-princeton-to-major-in-comparative-literature-i-never-went/) [Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/elizabeth-chai-vasarhelyi/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/637/elizabeth-chai-vasarhelyi-1911_books_i-went-to-princeton-to-major-in-comparat_809065.jpg) > [I went to college at Harvard, then did three years of graduate school at Yale. At both places I studied comparative literature.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lev-grossman/i-went-to-college-at-harvard-then-did-three-years-of-graduate-school/) [Lev Grossman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lev-grossman/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a3d/lev-grossman-747_books_i-went-to-college-at-harvard-then-did-th_1611765.png) > [What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that's my function, but from time to time it's…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wole-soyinka/what-i-teach-is-literary-criticism-and-comparative-literature-and-so/) [Wole Soyinka](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wole-soyinka/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e5/wole-soyinka-1587_books_what-i-teach-is-literary-criticism-and-c_162808.jpg) > [I'm a professor of comparative literature, among other things, so I'm able to read in a couple of other languages, and I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/judith-butler/i-m-a-professor-of-comparative-literature-among-other-things-so-i-m/) [Judith Butler](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/judith-butler/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4c8/judith-butler-1374_able_i-m-a-professor-of-comparative-literatur_817871.jpg) > [English is, from my point of view as an Americanist, an ethnicity. And English literature should be studied in Comparative Literature. And…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/paula-gunn-allen/english-is-from-my-point-of-view-as-an-americanist-an-ethnicity-and/) [Paula Gunn Allen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/paula-gunn-allen/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/41a/paula-gunn-allen-18956_american-literature_english-is-from-my-point-of-view-as-an-a_1635860.jpg) > [I studied Comparative Literature at Cornell. Structuralism was real big then. The idea of reading and writing as being this language game.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-t-vollmann/i-studied-comparative-literature-at-cornell-structuralism-was-real/) [William T. Vollmann](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/william-t-vollmann/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d97/william-t-vollmann-2100_appeals_i-studied-comparative-literature-at-corn_1039342.jpg) > [“Professor of Comparative Literature, B.A. Harvard. Ph.D. Sorbonne, Oxford. Somewhere certificates pasted in full-of-truth blue book. At points we diverge, essential points…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-edgar-wideman/professor-of-comparative-literature-b-a-harvard-ph-d-sorbonne-oxford/) [John Edgar Wideman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-edgar-wideman/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4ed/john-edgar-wideman-7347_blue-book_professor-of-comparative-literature-b-a_3173777.jpg) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/comparative-literature/#itemlist", "name": "Comparative literature Quotes", "numberOfItems": 10, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "God bless my father, but he always spoke in this continental, literary accent, probably because he was a professor of comparative literature and he made the decision to speak with distinction.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Nicolas Cage" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nicolas-cage/god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke-in-this-continental-literary/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b15/nicolas-cage-1199_accents_god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke_830868.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b15/nicolas-cage-1199_accents_god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke_830868.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b15/nicolas-cage-1199_accents_god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke_830868.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“God bless my father, but he always spoke in this continental, literary accent, probably because he was a…” — Nicolas Cage", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "If a comparative-literature major had existed at Harvard College for undergraduates I would have surely gone in that direction.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Louis Begley" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/louis-begley/if-a-comparative-literature-major-had-existed-at-harvard-college-for/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/713/louis-begley-43300_college_if-a-comparative-literature-major-had-ex_568768.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/713/louis-begley-43300_college_if-a-comparative-literature-major-had-ex_568768.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/713/louis-begley-43300_college_if-a-comparative-literature-major-had-ex_568768.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“If a comparative-literature major had existed at Harvard College for undergraduates I would have surely gone…” — Louis Begley", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "The phrase I like to use to describe my sense of time-a play on comparative literature - is comparative time.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Yehuda Amichai" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/yehuda-amichai/the-phrase-i-like-to-use-to-describe-my-sense-of-time-a-play-on/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b5a/yehuda-amichai-15231_books_the-phrase-i-like-to-use-to-describe-my_2425645.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b5a/yehuda-amichai-15231_books_the-phrase-i-like-to-use-to-describe-my_2425645.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b5a/yehuda-amichai-15231_books_the-phrase-i-like-to-use-to-describe-my_2425645.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The phrase I like to use to describe my sense of time-a play on comparative literature - is comparative time.” — Yehuda Amichai", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "I went to Princeton to major in comparative literature. 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People find it odd that I went to both Harvard and Yale, and I guess it is odd, but that's just what people did where I grew up.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Lev Grossman" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lev-grossman/i-went-to-college-at-harvard-then-did-three-years-of-graduate-school/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a3d/lev-grossman-747_books_i-went-to-college-at-harvard-then-did-th_1611765.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a3d/lev-grossman-747_books_i-went-to-college-at-harvard-then-did-th_1611765.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a3d/lev-grossman-747_books_i-went-to-college-at-harvard-then-did-th_1611765.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I went to college at Harvard, then did three years of graduate school at Yale. 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I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Wole Soyinka" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wole-soyinka/what-i-teach-is-literary-criticism-and-comparative-literature-and-so/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e5/wole-soyinka-1587_books_what-i-teach-is-literary-criticism-and-c_162808.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e5/wole-soyinka-1587_books_what-i-teach-is-literary-criticism-and-c_162808.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e5/wole-soyinka-1587_books_what-i-teach-is-literary-criticism-and-c_162808.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that's my function, but from…” — Wole Soyinka", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "I'm a professor of comparative literature, among other things, so I'm able to read in a couple of other languages, and I understand that not everyone is, not everyone can, although it is quite stunning how many people do read Spanish in the United States, but moving between languages is also extremely helpful.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Judith Butler" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/judith-butler/i-m-a-professor-of-comparative-literature-among-other-things-so-i-m/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4c8/judith-butler-1374_able_i-m-a-professor-of-comparative-literatur_817871.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4c8/judith-butler-1374_able_i-m-a-professor-of-comparative-literatur_817871.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4c8/judith-butler-1374_able_i-m-a-professor-of-comparative-literatur_817871.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I'm a professor of comparative literature, among other things, so I'm able to read in a couple of other…” — Judith Butler", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "English is, from my point of view as an Americanist, an ethnicity. And English literature should be studied in Comparative Literature. And American literature should be a discipline, certainly growing from England and France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, and the Native traditions, particularly because those helped form the American canon. Those are our backgrounds. And then we'd be doing it the way it ought to be done. And someday I hope that it will be.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Paula Gunn Allen" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/paula-gunn-allen/english-is-from-my-point-of-view-as-an-americanist-an-ethnicity-and/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/41a/paula-gunn-allen-18956_american-literature_english-is-from-my-point-of-view-as-an-a_1635860.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/41a/paula-gunn-allen-18956_american-literature_english-is-from-my-point-of-view-as-an-a_1635860.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/41a/paula-gunn-allen-18956_american-literature_english-is-from-my-point-of-view-as-an-a_1635860.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“English is, from my point of view as an Americanist, an ethnicity. And English literature should be studied…” — Paula Gunn Allen", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 9, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "I studied Comparative Literature at Cornell. Structuralism was real big then. The idea of reading and writing as being this language game. There's a lot of appeal to that. It's nice to think of it as this playful kind of thing. But I think that another way to look at it is \"Look, I just want to be sincere. I want to write something and make you feel something and maybe you will go out and do something.\" And it seems that the world is in such bad shape now that we don't have time to do nothing but language games. That's how it seems to me.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "William T. Vollmann" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-t-vollmann/i-studied-comparative-literature-at-cornell-structuralism-was-real/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d97/william-t-vollmann-2100_appeals_i-studied-comparative-literature-at-corn_1039342.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d97/william-t-vollmann-2100_appeals_i-studied-comparative-literature-at-corn_1039342.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d97/william-t-vollmann-2100_appeals_i-studied-comparative-literature-at-corn_1039342.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I studied Comparative Literature at Cornell. Structuralism was real big then. The idea of reading and…” — William T. Vollmann", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 10, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Professor of Comparative Literature, B.A. Harvard. Ph.D. Sorbonne, Oxford. Somewhere certificates pasted in full-of-truth blue book. At points we diverge, essential points in fact. Always a clean white page to begin on. Où sont les neiges. The boy had been strangely unreluctant. Although detached, even cold in a numb, childish fashion, the boy had willingly submitted. First his shoes, then his socks and trousers pulled off by the Doctor’s trembling white hands, his priest hands moving of themselves, mechanical but infused with timeless primordial mystery that guided his fingers with a logic more powerful and comprehending than his own being. The flesh presented to his lips, staleness of his own groin floating up to meet him as he knelt. Breath of a dying wino. With this kiss I thee wed, the lean black bridegroom puff of veiled white beside him arm curled into his as they stood rigid with grotesque, confectionary smiles atop the pyramid of cake. Stale cake toppling then as knife keenly enters collapsing with a wheeze the creamy icing. He gave of himself in grudged thin spasms. The hierophant rose on stiff knees.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "John Edgar Wideman" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-edgar-wideman/professor-of-comparative-literature-b-a-harvard-ph-d-sorbonne-oxford/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4ed/john-edgar-wideman-7347_blue-book_professor-of-comparative-literature-b-a_3173777.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4ed/john-edgar-wideman-7347_blue-book_professor-of-comparative-literature-b-a_3173777.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4ed/john-edgar-wideman-7347_blue-book_professor-of-comparative-literature-b-a_3173777.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Professor of Comparative Literature, B.A. Harvard. Ph.D. Sorbonne, Oxford. Somewhere certificates pasted in…” — John Edgar Wideman", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/comparative-literature/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/comparative-literature/", "name": "Comparative literature Quotes", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/comparative-literature/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b15/nicolas-cage-1199_accents_god-bless-my-father-but-he-always-spoke_830868.jpg" }, "description": "Browse 10 Comparative literature quotes by 10 authors. 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