Approach Quote by F. R. Leavis

The novel, as a genre, was once considered a diversion every bit as frivolous as Facebook, but over the years, we've managed to convince…

— Lynn Coady

Of course there is no denying the possible pleasure of holing up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; still, we all know that we…

— Joseph Brodsky

We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret…

— Jackie French

Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have…

— Robertson Davies

“ABOUT SENTIMENTALITY IN LITERATURE: "Sentimental fiction is a kind of pablum: Excessive amounts can spoil the appetite for reality, or at least for more…

— Alice Simpson

“There must always be a fringe of the experimental in literature--poems bizarre in form and curious in content, stories that overreach for what has…

— Henry Seidel Canby

That is why the ideal literary diet consists of trash and classics; all that has survived, and all that has no reason to survive…

— Anthony Lane

“It is the importance of this quality of generosity in fiction that requires a measure of childishness in the writer. People who have strong…

— John Gardner

It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Books cannot always please, however good; Minds are not ever craving for their food.

— George Crabbe

“For heaven’s sake, don’t turn reading into the intellectual equivalent of eating organic greens, or (shifting the metaphor slightly) some fearfully disciplined appointment with…

— Alan Jacobs

Literary readings aren't going to shake their reputation as the added-fibre of our entertainment diet until the people who organize and participate in them…

— Lynn Coady