I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.

Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.

The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature.

Again, both literature and philosophy work by appealing to certain reigning idols.

In thus pointing out certain respects in which philosophy resembles literature more than science, I do not mean, of course, to imply that it would be well for philosophy if it ceased to aim at scientific rigor.

Lastly, literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.

Literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.

Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature.

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.

There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.

Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature.

The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.