Books Quote by Ralph Ellison

Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress. It deepens our natural sensibilities, and strengthens by exercise our intellectual capacities.…

— George Henry Lewes

“Literature takes us away from our grey everyday experience, but brings us back enriched with new sensibilities.”

— Willie van Peer

“Literature enables us to see our world and ourselves more clearly, to understand our lives more fully.”

— Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst

“But the thing about Literature is, well, basically it encapsulates all the disciplines - it's history, philosophy, politics, sexual politics, sociology, psychology, linguistics, science.…

— David Nicholls

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

Literature is humanity talking to itself.

— Norman Rush

Literature is one of the few areas left where black and white feel some identity of purpose; we all struggle under censorship.

— Nadine Gordimer

“What does literature do better than anything else? It provides a detailed representation of the inner experience of being alive in a given time…

— Elif Batuman

“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 is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.

— William Stafford

The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of…

— Lionel Trilling

“Literature is the aesthetic exploitation of language”

— Anthony Burgess