Leavis Quotes

#1. The force of originality "that made Donne so potent an influence in the seventeenth century makes him now at once for us, without his being the less felt as of his period, contemporary - obviously a living poet in the most important sense." In "The Good-Morrow" Leavis said that

John Donne

#2. The "great tradition" does not brook even the possibility of libidinal gratification between the pages as an end in itself, and FR Leavis's "eat up your broccoli" approach to fiction emphasises this junkfood/wholefood dichotomy.

F.R. Leavis

#3. A good deal of Paradise Lost strikes one as being almost as mechanical as bricklaying.

F.R. Leavis

#4. All through my comics career, I was always trying to reinvent the form.

Scott McCloud

#5. In any period it is upon a very small minority that the discerning appreciation of art and literature depends ... They are still a minority, though a larger one, who are capable of endorsing such first-hand judgement by genuine personal response.

F.R. Leavis

#6. Poetry can communicate the actual quality of experience with a subtlety and precision unapproachable by any other means.

F.R. Leavis

#7. It just seemed the timing of it was a little bit of pandering to the public at a time of an election.

Matt Gonzalez

#8. True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.

Louis Nizer

#9. A truly good book is something as wildly natural and primitive, mysterious and marvelous, ambrosial and fertile as a fungus or a lichen.

Henry David Thoreau

#10. A man's most vivid emotional and sensuous experience is inevitably bound up with the language that he actually speaks. (New Bearings in English Poetry)

F.R. Leavis

#11. I'm not trying to find and attain some sense of righteousness in my lifestyle. I'm just trying to live right.

K.I. Hope

#12. Literature is the supreme means by which you renew your sensuous and emotional life and learn a new awareness.

F.R. Leavis

#13. I've definitely had ideas and plans that sometimes exceed my means and capabilities.

Emile Hirsch