literature

Either you will be you or you will not be at all.

We like to admit to only that which already glows, although it is nobler to support brightness before it glows, not afterwards.

In the language of the day it is customary to describe a certain sort of book as __scapist_ literature. As I understand it, the adjective implies, a little condescendingly, that the life therein depicted cannot be identified with the real life which the critic knows so well in W.C.1: and may even have the disastrous effect on the reader of taking him happily for a few hours out of his own real life in N.W.8. Why this should be a matter for regret I do not know; nor why realism in a novel is so much admired when realism in a picture is condemned as mere photography; nor, I might add, why drink and fornication should seem to bring the realist closer to real life than, say, golf and gardening.

They blossomed, they did not talk about blossoming.

When the long bygone Lee Po wanted to say something, he could do it with only a few words.

The light teaches you to convert life into a festive promenade.

Universe is the Sun watching its own self.

Christ did not ask or want to be what he was not.

After Homer and Dante, is a whole century of creating worth one Shakespeare?

If what we think of ourselves were true, the planet would overflow with geniuses.

Sunbathe from within.

Without pleasure there is no sight or measure.

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it." -- William Styron (born June 11 1925)

Whatever others may say, they say it to deceive and comfort themselves, not help you.

In the lie of truth lies the truth.

Either all lights are turned off or one inner light is missing.

Truth is hard-hearted and unrelenting, too clear, precise; a lie is much more imaginative.

We forget old stories, but those stories remain the same.