Alive Quote by Susan Sontag

Literature is humanity talking to itself.

— Norman Rush

Literature and the arts are also criticism in a more particular and practical sense. They embody an expository reflection on, a value judgement of,…

— George Steiner

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 often gets taught nowadays as a record of the sins and shortcomings of the past. I see literature and the arts very differently:…

— Brian Boyd

“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 form of permanent insurrection. Its mission is to arouse, to disturb, to alarm, to keep men in a constant state of…

— Mario Vargas Llosa

“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 the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language…

— Octavio Paz

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

The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of…

— Italo Calvino

Literature is the question minus the answer.

— Roland Barthes

“...literature gives you ideas to think with. It stocks your mind. It does not indoctrinate, because diversity, counter-argument, reappraisal and qualification are its essence.…

— John Carey