Book Quote by Gustave Flaubert

A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.

— Samuel Johnson

You're not getting the joy out of literature that it gave you. This is the danger of what we do. Look at Hemingway and…

— T.C. Boyle

Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity of his desires; in refusing to await…

— Pope Francis

“I am beginning to realize that taking the self out of our essays is a form of repression. Taking the self out feels like…

— Kate Zambreno

Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.

— Samuel Johnson

That's the great thing about literature -- it makes the world less lonely.

— Robert Stone

In secluding himself too much from society, an author is in danger of losing that intimate acquaintance with life which is the only sure…

— Christian Nestell Bovee

a novelist's chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible. He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy. He wants…

— Virginia Woolf

Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The writer is often faced with two choices--turn away from the reality of life's intimidating complexity or conquer its mystery by battling with it.…

— Chinua Achebe

“It is not a single cowardice that drives us into fiction's fantasies. We often fear that literature is a game we can't afford to…

— William H. Gass

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating,…

— Edna Ferber