Accounts Quote by Lionel Trilling

Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty

— Lionel Trilling

Literature is a beautiful way of keeping the imagination alive, of visiting worlds you would never have time to in your day-to-day life. It…

— Abraham Verghese

For me, literature is a complex game, both mental and concrete, which is acted out in a physical manner on the page.

— Guillermo Cabrera Infante

“Literature is literature. Its purpose is to challenge and disorient us, to break us down a little bit so that we are forced to…

— Mark Slouka

Literature usually begets literature.

— Susan Sontag

Literature is capable of being a subject that people want to catch up on or discuss, whether at a coffee shop or a watercooler.…

— Mark Z. Danielewski

Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity.

— Rebecca West

Literature has as one of its principal allures that it tells you something about life that life itself can't tell you. I just thought…

— Richard Ford

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or…

— Barbara Kingsolver

Literature allows us to be open, to listen, and to be curious.

— Tracy K. Smith

Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next.…

— Laurie Anderson

What is literature, really? Boiled down to a single sentence, I'd say it's this: an endless conversation about what it means to be human.…

— Nicole Krauss