“Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book.” KnowsWritingBookMightLiteratureAttentionSubjectsSonReaderHeroPeriodsBattleFameIncreaseFortuneMemoirContractsDistressObligedPublicationVicissitudes Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius
“A surprising number of people - including many students of literature - will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children.” PeopleChildrenBookLiteratureLanguageNumbersHavensStudentsIncludingSurprising Author:A. S. Byatt
“The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word 'renowned'... I think what enabled the first word to tip me off that I was about to spend a number of hours in the company of one of the worst prose stylists in the history of literature was this. Putting curriculum vitae details into complex modifiers on proper names or definite descriptions is what you do in journalistic stories about deaths; you just don't do it in describing an event in a narrative... Why did I keep reading? Because London Heathrow is a long way from San Francisco International.” ThinkingWayFirstsWellsMayLongBookStoriesReadingLiteratureNamesLanguageHoursNumbersCompanyNovelWrittenWorstEventsComplexesInternationalDetailsLondonNarrativeCodeProseDescriptionDefiniteLong WaySan FranciscoDescribingCurriculumStylistJournalisticRenownedDa Vinci Code Author:Geoffrey K. Pullum