literature

I wrote when I did not know life;now that I know life, I have no more to say.

Harold Bloom weeps for me.

Utopia retains throughout its long history the basic form of the narrative of a journey. The traveler in space or time is an explorer who happens upon utopia. He (or, more recently, she) meets its people, usually at first its ordinary people, observes them at work and play, sees their dwellings and their cities... The traveler is, as are we, the more prepared to accept the validity and desirability of the general principles for having seen with his own eyes its effects in the daily life of its inhabitants.

Understand is not the word; you are right, you can never really 'understand' about someone, anyone, even yourself. It is best to believe in them as human; feel that they are alive like you and need warmth, concern.

There is more to hear in what is not said.

I can imagine her memories of the novel, or, more likely, of who she was and how she felt when reading it.

Literature is still doing the same job that mythology did earlier, but filling in its huge cloudy shapes with sharper lights and deeper shadows.

It was all extremely symbolic; but then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not symbolical.

Why is it that human beings are allowed to grow up without the necessary apparatus to make sound ethical decisions?

Her book has perhaps been a good one; it has refreshed, refilled, rewarmed her heart; it has set her brain astir, furnished her mind with pictures.

I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid.

Poems are surmountable. They have rhymes and rhythms to help you make meaning. They're short enough. . . to read and reread until you've made some sense of them. Short stories are a different ballgame. You read them and understand the words completely. You know what happens in each sentence. You follow the dialogue and action. at the end, you know exactly what's happened. And also you have no idea.

The compact between writing and walking is almost as old as literature -- a walk is only a step away from a story, and every path tells.

with you, the sense i have lost my place in a bookor simply lost _ misplaced the memorywhich isn't in the last place where I looked.a thought that the clouds don't move _ that it is wewho thunder past _ there it is! an old vacation,a train ride _ sense of immobility.as sky and forest scroll past in relation,we are not moved, pretend to love the view,resort at length to scripted conversationby a poet-turned-screenwriter who didn't want this job, career gone grossly wrongand now drafts action film scripts wholly two-dimensional unless you choose to don the 3d glasses that do not stay on _

Irony alone is damning.The flesh will be bland and you will believe you are forever reading the same book.

Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: "You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flo

Snowflake__ journey is a metaphor. A metaphor for what, exactly?I have no freaking clue.

Did she feel pity for me, did she want me to suffer?The next morning she led me to the coat closet, which faces the living room, she went in with me, we were in there all day, although she knew he wouldn__ come until the afternoon, it was too small, we needed more space between us, we needed Nothing Places, she said __his is what it__ felt like, except you weren__ here._ We looked at each other in silence for hours.