“All great books contain boring portions, and all great lives have contained uninteresting stretches.” BookGreatnessBoringPortionsGreat Book Book:The Conquest of Happiness Source: The Conquest of Happiness
“I spent my first two years at a small all-male college in Virginia called Hampden-Sydney. That was like going to college 120 years ago. The languages, a year of rhetoric, all of the great books, Western Man courses, stuff like that.” MenYearsFirstsTwoBookCoursesLanguageStuffCollegeYears AgoWesternMalesTwo YearsRhetoricVirginiaGreat BookSydneyGoing To College Author:Stephen Colbert
“I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.” IfsWritingYearsBookMightHappensFeltMonthsSixUnderstoodWorthyFortySixtySix MonthsPublicationGreat BookNew Books Author:Augusten Burroughs
“I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. The Gathering did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.” PeopleFeelsBookBigsWinningHeardPressureHonestlyGatheringGreat BookHang Over Author:Anne Enright
“Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. Remarking on the complexity of Ptolemaic model of the universe after it was explained to him. Footnote: Carlyle says, in his History of Frederick the Great, book ii. chap. vii. that this saying of Alphonso about Ptolemy's astronomy, 'that it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice,' is still remembered by mankind, - this and no other of his many sayings.” StillsBookScienceUniverseGivenTakenAdviceMankindCreationModelsMachinesCreatorAstronomyPityRememberedComplexityHintsGreat BookCrankChapsFootnotes Author:Alfonso X of Castile
“Virginia Woolf's great novel, 'Mrs. Dalloway,' is the first great book I ever read. I read it almost by accident when I was in high school, when I was 15 years old.” YearsFirstsBookSchoolNovelHigh SchoolAccidentsVirginiaGreat BookWoolfGreat NovelsMrs Dalloway Author:Michael Cunningham