"In Talmudic literature, certainly in the beginning, he was like a human being - except he was a serpent. But he was talking and walking and probably dreaming."
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Literature quotes
Literature
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Literature quotes (page 64 of 201)
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"I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe."
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"For some of us, watching a miniseries that lasts longer than most marriages is not easy."
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"Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?"
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"There can be no great literature in America until her writers have learned to trust her implicitly and love her devoutly."
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"I never liked to hunt, you know. There was always the danger of having a horse fall on you."
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"Somebody said that I am the last American living the tragedy of Europe."
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"That's true of every form of literature - each writer brings new things to it because each of us is an individual."
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"Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering."
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"I have become infected, now that I see how beautifully a book is coming out of all this."
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"I fell in love, not deep, but I fell several times and then fell out."
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"Reality, the oppressor's tongue."
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"Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions."
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"I did my BA in English lit, and hated the restriction - I'd always read more in translation than not; coming from a working-class background, what I knew of as British literature - the writers who made big prize lists and/or were stocked in WH Smith, Doncaster's only bookshop until I was 17 - seemed incredibly, alienatingly middle-class. Then in 2009, just after the financial crash, I graduated with no more specific skill than 'can analyse a bit of poetry'."
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"Good music is very close to primitive language."
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"There's always a host of voices you're inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He's one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens."
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"There is an interview given by [ Jean-Paul] Sartre in the USA where he is asked what the future of French literature is, and he replies that the next great writer of the future is [Albert] Camus."
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"Intellectuals of [Albert] Camus' age who had previously disliked him now appreciate him. And at that point we come back to literature, and it's agreed that he was always a great writer."
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"If I had life to live over again, I would give my life to poetry, to music, to literature, and to art to make life richer and happier. In my youth I steeled myself against them and thought them so much waste."
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"We are so very 'umble."
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