Best American Literature Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“What had brought me to New York in the autumn of 1972 was a letter of recommendation written by Norman Mailer, the author of 'The Naked and the Dead' and American literature's leading heavyweight contender, to Dan Wolf, the delphic editor of 'The Village Voice.'”

Literature Voice Written New York Letters Naked Autumn Village Editors Recommendations American Literature Heavyweights

Author:James Wolcott

“There's nothing political about American literature.”

Political Literature American Literature

Author:Laura Bush

“All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.”

“I know why the caged bird sings.”

“The women of the South have brought into American literature a unique mixture of domesticity and grotesquerie.”

Literature Unique South Mixtures American Literature Domesticity

Author:James Dickey

“English is, from my point of view as an Americanist, an ethnicity. And English literature should be studied in Comparative Literature. And American literature should be a discipline, certainly growing from England and France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, and the Native traditions, particularly because those helped form the American canon. Those are our backgrounds. And then we'd be doing it the way it ought to be done. And someday I hope that it will be.”

“I like the hip writers: Fitzgerald, the guy who committed suicide, Hemingway, all those guys. Some of them were alcoholics and drug addicts but they had fun. They were real people. They formed the culture of American literature. Hemingway admired Tolstoy, Tolstoy admired Pushkin, and Mailer admired Hemingway. It all flows down. The greats are all connected. One day I'm gonna write a book myself. The first chapter will be about what a rough deal my momma got. She believed in you guys and your society.”

“I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.”

Thinking I Can Literature Influence American Literature Detective Fiction

Author:Dashiell Hammett

“American literature had always considered writing a very serious matter”

Writing Matter Literature Serious American Literature

Author:Guillermo Cabrera Infante

“American literature has never been content to be just one among the many literatures of the Western World. It has always aspired to be the literature not only of a new continent but of a New World.”

World Literature Western Just One New World Continents Western World American Literature

Author:Christopher Dawson

“As a young writer, I was on guard against the Latina in me, the Spanish in me because as far as I could see the models that were presented to me did not include my world. In fact, 'I was told by one teacher in college that one could only write poetry in the language in which one first said Mother. That left me out of American literature, for sure.”

World Writing Firsts Said Facts Young Mother Literature Left Language Teacher College Models American Literature Young Writers Latina

Author:Julia Alvarez

“I finally returned to Iran in 1979, when I got my degree in English and American literature, and stayed for 18 years in the Islamic republic.”

Years Literature Degrees Islamic Iran Republic American Literature

Author:Azar Nafisi

“Janet Mock's honest and sometimes searing journey is a rare and important look into la vida liminal, one that she manages to negotiate remarkably well, with grace, humor, and fierce grit. Mock doesn't only redefine what realness means to her, but challenges us to rethink our own perceptions of gender and sexuality, feminism and sisterhood, making this book a transcendent piece of American literature.”

“It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.”

Love Literature Waiting Forever Nostalgia Paradox Looking Back Hygiene American Literature

Book:Aroused by Books

Source: Aroused by Books

“Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature and one of only three now writing whose work makes me truly happy to be a reader.”

Writing Important Three Literature Reader American Literature Truly Happy

Author:Michael Chabon

“We must strike down the insidious lie that a book is the creation of an individual soul labouring in isolation. We must strike it down because it threatens the overall quality and breadth of American literature.”

Book Soul Lying Literature Individual Quality Creation Strikes Isolation Breadth Insidious American Literature

Author:John Green

“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

People Literature Refuse Invisible African American Substance Black History Criminal Mind Fiber Invisibility American Literature Black History Month Inspirational Figments Sideshows

Author:Ralph Ellison

“I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

People Men Mind Said Might Black Refuse Bones Flesh Invisible African American Substance Black History Liquid Fiber American Literature Black History Month Inspirational Sideshows

Author:Ralph Ellison

“Dagwood Bumstead was a great unrecognized hero of American literature. He showed up every day, he got knocked down every day, he never got to eat his sandwich every day, the dog jumped on him every day, his wife was giving him a hard time and he showed up every day.”

Giving Hard Literature Wife Dog Hero Hard Times Sandwiches Knocked Down American Literature

Author:James L. Brooks

“Like no other writer in contemporary American literature, Brock Clarke has a way of looking at us, I mean looking straight at us--warts, lots of warts, and beauty and hypocrisy and love, too, the gamut. And hes done it again in this brilliant The Happiest People in the World, a novel that is as hilarious and thought-provoking as it is ultimately, deadly, deadly serious. I for one am grateful hes out there--watching our every move.”

People World Way Mean Done Moving Literature Novel Serious And Love Grateful Brilliant Contemporary Hypocrisy Thought Provoking Provoking American Literature Warts

Author:Peter Orner

“Héctor Tobar's accomplished first novel affords a perspective that is overdue and urgently needed in North American literature- -an insider's vision of L.A. as a Third World city. The Tattooed Soldier is a riveting book that manages to be at once politically informed and at the same time a psychologically astute study of that most elemental of stories: revenge.”

“It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along the shore.”

Persons Doe Book Ideas America Reading Literature Nations Born Written Europe Originals Currents Shore Book Reading Original Ideas American Literature

Book:Papers on Literature and Art

Source: Papers on Literature and Art

“I get up at an unholy hour in the morning my work day is completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.”

Made Literature Hours Morning Sun Enormous Get Up Contribution American Literature Sun Rise Work Day

Author:David Eddings

“Modern American literature was born in protest, born in rebellion, born out of the sense of loss and indirection which was imposed upon the new generations out of the realization that the old formal culture-the "New England idea"-could no longer serve.”

Ideas Culture Literature Born Loss Generations Modern England Realization Protest Rebellion Formal New Generation New England American Literature

Book:On Native Grounds: An Interpretation Of Modern American Prose Literature

Source: On Native Grounds: An Interpretation Of Modern American Prose Literature

“One of the great themes in American literature is the individual's confrontation with the vast open spaces of the continent.”

Literature Individual Space Theme Continents Confrontation American Literature Open Spaces

Author:Justin Cronin

“I like contemporary American literature and I like biographies and I like jazz and I like baseball and I like writers who write about the human condition and sci-fi is just something that I happened into.”

Writing Humans Literature Happened Conditions Baseball Jazz Contemporary Sci Fi Human Condition Biographies American Literature

Author:Jonathan Frakes

“As an undergraduate I majored in British and American literature at Rice University.”

Literature University British Rice American Literature Undergraduate

Author:David Eagleman

“When I came to America, I was already a writer, already published in Bosnia. I was planning to go back, but I had no choice but to stay here after the civil war, so I enrolled at Northwestern in a master's program and studied American literature.”

War America Choices Literature Masters Program Planning Civil War American Literature Bosnia Northwestern

Author:Aleksandar Hemon

“The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature.”

Literature Hallmark Protagonists American Literature

Author:Tayari Jones

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American Literature Quotes