Literary Standards Quotes

#1. The greatness of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.

T. S. Eliot

#2. Some literary types subscribe to the notion that being a writer like Salinger entitles a person to remain free of the standards that might apply to mere mortals.

Joyce Maynard

#3. If critics say your work stinks it's because they want it to stink and they can make it stink by scaring you into conformity with their comfortable little standards. Standards so low that they can no longer be considered "dangerous" but set in place in their compartmental understandings.

Jack Kerouac

#4. Truth is such a precious article - let us all economize in its use.

Mark Twain

#5. I feel like I've gotten to the point where when I get tired of making art I can make a smooth transition into making music and vice versa. There is always something to do.

John Dyer Baizley

#6. Before Cliff (Richard) and The Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music.

John Lennon

#7. To the folks that continue to support through ups and downs ... good and bad ... I can't thank you ...

Chris Copeland

#8. My parents taught me to believe that through the creative act, we're able to transcend and give a response to desecration.

Atom Egoyan

#9. There is a potential heroine in every woman.

Jean Shinoda Bolen

#10. Our country represents nothing but peaceful intentions toward all the earth, but it ought not to fail to maintain such a military force as comports with the dignity and security of a great people.

Calvin Coolidge

#11. Kid's books should be just as good as any other books. No. They should be held to a *higher* standard than other literature for the same reason that we take extra care with children's food.

Patrick Rothfuss

#12. I make such big efforts to forget things and I can't tell the story of my life because, thank God, I'm still living it.

Karl Lagerfeld

#13. There's no talking. No laughing. Nothing but eager hands and sad eyes.

Nyrae Dawn

#14. Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

Omar Khayyam

#15. I'm not trying to be a different weight. I want to be a different body type so that I'm not an apple. I just want to be a pear!

Octavia Spencer

#16. A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.

Mahatma Gandhi

#17. His problem is that he has so completely internalized the values of his society that he judges himself by standards rooted in social myths rather than human necessities.

Christopher Bigsby

#18. The standards for horror fiction should be no less than those for 'serious literary' fiction in which originality of concept, depth of characters, and attentiveness to language are vitally important.

Joyce Carol Oates

#19. I thought it was a glorious thing to be a critic and to be a literary editor, and one was really doing something that mattered: to keep up standards, to take books seriously.

Claire Tomalin