Epics Versus Novels Quotes

#1. If we think of the novel and the epic ... The difference lies in the fact that the important thing about the epic is a hero
a man who is a pattern for all men. While, as Mencken pointed out, the essence of most novels lies in the breaking down of a man, in the degeneration of character.

Jorge Luis Borges

#2. It feel like winning the cup final, if that's what it feels like

Graham Hawkins

#3. I felt just the way Billie Holiday sounded, like I'd cried all I could and it wasn't enough.

Janet Fitch

#4. The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.

Philip Johnson

#5. All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

Enoch Powell

#6. Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better.

Henri Matisse

#7. The motive for metaphor ... is a desire to associate, and finally to identify, the human mind with what goes on outside it, because the only genuine joy you can have is in those rare moments when you feel that although we may know in part, as Paul says, we are also a part of what we know.

Northrop Frye

#8. By ignoring compliments and homages we lead the person paying those compliments to think we look down on him, when in fact we are only doubting ourselves.

Albert Camus

#9. The gate that leads to life is narrow and small so that few find it.

Rae Carson