Adult Literature Quotes

ABOUT SENTIMENTALITY IN LITERATURE:
"Sentimental fiction is a kind of pablum: Excessive amounts can spoil the appetite for reality, or at least for more fibrous forms of art. One reason, surely, why readers throw down books when they don't contain sufficiently "likable" characters is that their tolerance for any sort of moral challenge - for being asked, say, to sympathize with homeless little boys who are godless and truculent and a bit smelling - has been eroded by too many fairy tales masquerading as adult literature."~ wrote Zoe Heller for Bookends in the Sunday's NY Times Book Review interview ~ Alice Simpson

When I first began writing, and I told people what I wrote, I'd get a blank stare and sometimes a 'Huh?' They weren't sure what young adult literature was. Now everyone knows. ~ Mary E. Pearson

Margaret Atwood was the author who took me out of children's literature and guided me towards adult literature. ~ Eleanor Catton

I have a passion for children's literature. Young adult literature. I love it. I've always loved it. ~ Gretchen Rubin

The light was luminescence and gloom, like the sky at midnight speckled with stars. All she could smell was the ocean... ~ Samantha Lee Churcher

Esperanza leaned around the side of the truck. As they rounded a curve, it appeared as if the mountains pulled away from each other, like a curtain opening on stage, revealing the San Joaquin Valley beyond. Flat and spacious, it spread out like a blanket of patchwork fields. Esperanza could see no end to the plots of yellow, brown, and shades of green. The road finally leveled out on the valley floor, and she gazed back at the mountains from where they'd come. They looked like monstrous lions' paws resting at the edge of ridge. ~ Pam Munoz Ryan

Children's literature is considerably more functional than a good portion of adult literature. If I were cynical, I might say: Children's books are written to be read; adult books are written to be talked about at cocktail parties.
There may be more truth that cynicism in that statement. My impression is that many adult books are written only to shock the reader (a short term goal, since shock quickly turns into boredom) or as calisthenics for the author's ego.
On the other hand, children's literature seems an area where books function as they were meant to; where they amaze, delight, and move our emotions. We can respect and admire any number of current adult books, but I find it hard to love them. ~ Lloyd Alexander

On the level of high art, in their common efforts to express human truths, relationships, attitudes, and personal visions, children's literature and adult literature meet and sometimes merge, and we wonder then whether a given work is truly for children or truly for grown-ups. The answer, of course, is: for both. ~ Lloyd Alexander

I don't really see any barrier between teenage fiction and adult literature. ~ Mal Peet

He [an earnest young reporter] seemed to share the view of many intelligent, well-educated, well-meaning people that, while adult literature may aim to be art, the object of children's books is to whip the little rascals into shape. ~ Katherine Paterson

... the primary trait of young adult literature is that the author's emphasis is on plot and character and not on his own brilliance. And because few people talk about whether a young adult work is commercial or literary; the two are still in sync, and everyone's benefitting. ~ Eliot Schrefer

I've been an avid consumer of young adult literature since I was one, and I think some people leave that stuff behind when they become old adults, but I never did. I was always interested in the fantasy world created in those novels. ~ Diablo Cody

I thought I'd been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing young adult literature. ~ Sherman Alexie

In some ways, getting published in children's literature is a little more open than publishing adult literature. It's less hinged on who you might know. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Epic, epic love is not about having someone. It's about being willing to give them up. It's sacrifice. It's my mom's theater tickets stuffed down at the bottom of her jewelry box. It's Noah and August. It's my sister and Annabelle. It's Jordan and his mom, the truth he reserves to protect her. And see, that's the thing I didn't understand. The thing no one tells you. That just because you find love doesn't mean it's yours to keep. Love never belongs to you. It belongs to the universe. ~ Rebecca Serle

Originally I had planned to write just a couple of children's books and then, return the focus on adult literature. A funny thing happened along the way - I kept having new ideas, and then I looked up one day, and 30 years had passed! ~ Nikki Grimes

The thing that is maybe the real difference, the fundamental difference, is that in adult literature you can have a literature of despair and end the work without any hope; you can have a literature of the absurd in which life is pointless, meaningless ... In children's literature you can have a tragic ending ... nevertheless, maybe what happens makes some kind of sense; maybe there is hope. We have got to pull out of ourselves some kind of hope. This is the key difference between writing for adults and children. ~ Lloyd Alexander

I liked the darkness, the dusty bay window, the view over the grey, muddy harbour and the towering cliffs beyond. How could I think of all that and dislike it, really, when in every nook and cranny I felt Peter's eyes peering out, watching me? ~ Ava Bloomfield

If possible, I'd like to avoid that kind of literary burnout. My idea of literature is something more spontaneous, more cohesive, something with a kind of natural, positive vitality. For me, writing a novel is like climbing a steep mountain, struggling up the face of the cliff, ~ Haruki Murakami

Through words to the meaning of thoughts with no words. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

The greatest stories appeal to our deepest selves, the parts of us snobbery can't reach, the parts that connect the child to the adult and the brain to the heart and reality to dreams. Stories, at their essence, are enemies of snobbery. And a book snob is the enemy of the book. ~ Matt Haig

Fall, sweetheart. I'll catch you. ~ Shelly Crane

I'd never seen him bare-chested. For the first time, he seemed vulnerable to me. His smooth, tight skin wrapped around the long muscles he'd developed over a lifetime of hard work.
He found a shallow spot and sat, settling me onto his lap, holding my back to his chest. I couldn't stop shaking and it had nothing to do with the water or with being half dressed in a cave with a boy.
"Nothing else matters," Henry said in my ear. "I'm here. Start at the beginning. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with. ~ Anna Quindlen

For people who have no critical acumen, a state is a mythical entity, for those who think critically it is a rational fiction, created by man in order to facilitate human coexistence. ~ Friedrich Durrenmatt

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

I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary."
I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun.
A nothing. A nobody. A no one. ~ Melina Marchetta

I am Captain James Hook! I am no victim; I create them! I do not have bad dreams; I inspire them! ~ Heidi Schulz

It is already clear, after twenty years of socialism in Russia, that if you do not provide your society with a new religion, it will gradually revert to the old one. ~ Herbert Read

By the mid 1920s the typical American town was in full sexual bloom. The change came with erotic fashions, literature and movies, and an unsuspected sexual aid, the automobile. ~ John Leo

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent. ~ James Baldwin

The study of science, dissociated from that of philosophy and literature, narrows the mind and weakens the power to love and follow the noblest ideals: for the truths which science ignores and must ignore are precisely those which have the deepest bearing on life and conduct. ~ John Lancaster Spalding

This was about to go very bad, because Adam was going to cry. "I miss you," he said, and his voice broke. ~ Jennifer Echols

The simple truth is that the Web the Internet, does one thing. It speeds up the retrieval and dissemination of information, partially eliminating such chores as going outdoors to the mailbox or the adult bookstore, or having to pick up the phone to get hold of your stockbroker or some buddies to shoot the breeze with. That one thing the Internet does, and only that. All the rest is Digibabble. ~ Tom Wolfe

I can assure you Ernest Hemingway was wrong when he said modern American literature began with Huckleberry Finn. It begins with Moby-Dick, the book that swallowed European civilization whole. ~ E.L. Doctorow

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

In literature, too, it is not great achievement to memorize what you have read while not formulating an opinion of your own. ~ Epictetus

Chess hasn't really influenced my literature. It's true, there's a character in Pigeon Post, an old chess player; but it's more of a wink, a self-portrait and not much more. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account. ~ Alice Walker

If you're saving, you're succeeding ~ Steve Burkholder

Generally, what adults want to know is my background, why I write what I write, and very personal insights that some say are inspiring. ~ Patricia Polacco

The term 'young adults' which is so often used today seems to me a misnomer, and one which, if taken seriously, may lead the adolescent into misunderstanding as to his nature and his role in life. 'Young he is; 'adult' he is not. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes ~ John Le Carre

I'm going to make love to you, Lanie. I'm not your first, but I will be the last. ~ Flora Roberts

Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger. ~ Michael N. Castle

He was talking. I tried not to think of how he looked and instead of what he was telling me. Once I accomplished that, my brain couldn't get past the 'running' part.
"I don't run." I walked the mile run at school. True story.
I abhorred any kind of physical exercise. I wasn't good at it. I was skinny, but I was soft; had absolutely no muscle mass at all. That's the way I liked it. Who was he to try to change that, change me? I wouldn't let him. No way, no how.
One half of his mouth lifted. He seemed to be enjoying this a little too much. "You do now. You have to be fit, you have to be strong, Taryn, if you're to stand any chance of surviving this. Come on, we'll start with stretching."
He forced me to twist my body into unimaginable positions. I even had to touch my toes. The agony. Luke took pleasure from my pain; even laughing as I moaned and groaned through it all.
Then, the worst came about. He. Made. Me. Run. ~ Lindy Zart

One of the great joys of my job is that you spend a huge amount of time investigating different areas of literature. ~ Stephen Daldry

Literature is both my joy and my comfort: it can add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it cannot console. ~ Pliny The Younger

Cath exhaled. Then inhaled. Her chest was so tight, it hurt both ways. Levi shouldn't get to make her feel this way - he shouldn't even have access to her chest. ~ Rainbow Rowell