Sometimes it's nice just to sit back and reminisce. A photo album of past experiences and acquaintances can somehow put things into perspective. That is also true for books; it's good to learn what other authors have said about writing and literature in general. So today we're going to take a look at literary quotes, some from long ago, some from more recent times.
“Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.”
― Boris Pasternak
“One glance at (a book) and you hear the voice of another person - perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time.”
― Carl Sagan,Cosmos
“I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his war hammer, and I have my mind… and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge. That’s why I read so much...”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
“A great book is a homing device
For navigating paradise.
A good book somehow makes you care
About the comfort of a chair.
A bad book owes to many trees
A forest of apologies.”
― J. Patrick Lewis
“Weren’t all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkdeath
“Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines--it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.”
― Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
“I don't know where people got the idea that characters in books are supposed to be likable. Books are not in the business of creating merely likeable characters with whom you can have some simple identification. Books are in the business of creating great stories that make your brain go ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr.”
― John Green
