Utopia In Literature Quotes

Utopia retains throughout its long history the basic form of the narrative of a journey... First comes the picture of a happy people in a beautiful and well-ordered setting; then comes the lecture on how it all came about, how it works, and, by implication, how it might be made to work in the traveller's own society. ~ Krishan Kumar

But only literature can put you in touch with another human spirit, as a whole, with all its weaknesses and grandeurs, its limitations, its pettinesses, its obsessions, its beliefs; with whatever it finds moving, interesting, exciting, or repugnant. Only literature can grant you access to a spirit from beyond the grave - a more direct, more complete, deeper access than you'd have in conversation with a friend. Even ~ Michel Houellebecq

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud ~ Carl Sandburg

Life is a book. We write in everyday existence. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Basically, being alive means keeping yourself ready for the sky to fall in on you at any time. If you start from the assumption that existence is only an ordeal, a test we have to pass, then you're equipped to deal with its sorrows and its surprises. If you persist in expecting it to give you something it can't give, that just proves that you haven't understood anything. Take things as they come; don't turn them into a drama. You're not piloting the ship, you're following the course of your destiny. ~ Yasmina Khadra

In high school I was drawn to the study of literature, poetry Shakespeare, contemporary fiction, drama, you name it - I read it. ~ Frederick Lenz

When I write poetry, I'll write it down, or a tiny bit of it, and then have to depend on the reader to bring his own feelings, moods and memories to the act of reading poetry. And this act is considerable art in itself. To read poetry or literature with attention is a marvelous thing to be able to do - to respond, to live and be moved by this subtle world you've created about you. ~ William Anderson

Defining moment in new telepathist's life, moment when intuitive individual learns most of society isn't telepathic, doesn't see auras,doesn't know what life on ethereal astral plane is like. ~ Christina Westover

Plato laments the decline of the oral tradition and the atrophy of memory which writing induces, I at the other end of the Age of the Written Word am impressed by the sturdiness and reliability of words on paper ... The will to record indelibly, to set down stories in permanent words, seems to me akin to the conviction that we are larger than our biologies. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Surveys have shown going back as far as you and I can remember that people have perceived a leftward tilt in the basic coverage that they get on TV news. ~ Brit Hume

The true elitists in the literary world are the ones who have become annoyed by literary ambition in any form, who have converted the very meaning of ambition so totally that it now registers as an act of disdain, a hostility to the poor common reader, who should never be asked to do anything that might lead to a pulled muscle. (What a relief to be told there's no need to bother with a book that might seem thorny, or abstract, or unusual.) The elitists are the ones who become angry when it is suggested to them that a book with low sales might actually deserve a prize ( ... ) and readers were assured that the low sales figures for some of the titles could only mean that the books had failed our culture's single meaningful literary test. ~ Ben Marcus

In the end, the world returns to a grain. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

She did find that the books displayed prominently in every chamber had been dusted, but the spines were pristine and uncreased. They had the sad, untouched air of literature paraded for display purposes but never actually used. It was profoundly depressing. ~ Genevieve Cogman

Have you ever looked at, say, a picture or a great building or read a paragraph in a book and felt the world suddenly expand and, in the same instant, contract and harden into a kernel of perfect purity? Do you know what I mean? Everything suddenly fits, everything's in its place. ~ Carol Shields

[Donald] Keene observed [in a book entitled The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, 1988] that the Japanese sense of beauty has long sharply differed from its Western counterpart: it has been dominated by a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate. The reason owes nothing to climate or genetics, added Keene, but is the result of the actions of writers, painters and theorists, who had actively shaped the sense of beauty of their nation.
Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. 'Culture' is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to. ~ Alain De Botton

We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ritalin abuse is a big issue in the US. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

Here is how I propose to end book-banning in this country once and for all: Every candidate for school committee should be hooked up to a lie detector and asked this question: "Have you read a book from start to finish since high school?" or "Did you even read a book from start to finish in high school?"

If the truthful answer is "no," then the candidate should be told politely that he cannot get on the school committee and blow off his big bazoo about how books make children crazy.

Whenever ideas are squashed in this country, literate lovers of the American experiment write careful and intricate explanations of why all ideas must be allowed to live. It is time for them to realize that they are attempting to explain America at its bravest and most optimistic to orangutans.

From now on, I intend to limit my discourse with dimwitted Savonarolas to this advice: "Have somebody read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution out loud to you, you God damned fool!"

Well--the American Civil Liberties Union or somebody like that will come to the scene of trouble, as they always do. They will explain what is in the Constitution, and to whom it applies.

They will win.

And there will be millions who are bewildered and heartbroken by the legal victory, who think some things should never be said--especially about religion.

They are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hi ho. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I'm in the civil discourse business. I think it takes all kinds. And more power to everybody. ~ Jim Lehrer

It's interesting to note that all revolutionary literature was written by pastors. These guys were involved in a revolution against the mightiest power that the world had ever seen. ~ Randall Terry

I feel like utopia is neither here nor there. It's in that sort of space where you feel the most present, and that can be on tour [or] at home. It's easier to get to that place on tour because your environment is constantly changing, and from a very primal, evolutionary perspective, you have heightened awareness when you're in an unfamiliar place, so it's easier to access that state. ~ Taraka Larson

There Peter sat in the new sunlight, plaiting the straw for baskets, until he saw the thing he had been taught most to fear advancing silently along the lea of an outcrop of rock. ~ Angela Carter

Most literature on the subject of agile methodology... is written from the viewpoint of software developers and programmers, and tends to place its main emphasis on programming techniques and agile project management - testing is usually only mentioned in the guise of unit testing and its associated tools. ...However, unit tests alone are not sufficient and broader-based testing is critical to the success of agile development processes. ~ Tilo Linz

In the essence of truth lies deceit. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted. ~ Henry David Thoreau

As a writer I have persisted in my uncertainty, alternating between novels which could charitably be considered literature and world reporting which by another stretch of objective standards might be called history. ~ James A. Michener

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art, in literature subtract the work of the men above forty, and while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are today ... The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty. ~ William Osler

She saw how the mind makes forever, in order to store the things it had already lost. ~ Richard Powers

The next stage of development, perhaps in the distant future, will be a social order under which there will be no need for the coercive power of the state. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Leisure, itself the creation of wealth, is incessantly engaged in transmuting wealth into beauty by secreting the surplus energy which flowers in great architecture, great painting and great literature. Only in the atmosphere thus engendered floats that impalpable dust of ideas which is the real culture. A colony of ants or bees will never create a Parthenon. ~ Edith Wharton

There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition. ~ Henry James

We seem to have forgotten that the expression "a liberal education" originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely, was considered worthy of slaves only. But taking a hint from the word, I would go a step further and say, that it is not the man of wealth and leisure simply, though devoted to art, or science, or literature, who, in a true sense, is liberally educated, but only the earnest and free man. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial. ~ Erma Bombeck

What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly. ~ Jonathan Swift

In contrast to England, half of whose literature seems to revolve around houses and estates, houses and estates being ready extensions of character, America has always found more value in the act of leaving one house for something larger and ostensibly nicer. Fewer and fewer houses remain in a family for more than a generation. They are not passed down ["The Basement," The Awl, Feb 5, 2015]. ~ Ariana Kelly

As far as I have been able to understand, the Japanese seem to keep things close to the vest. Friendly but remote and polite to the point of being invisible. It is in the music, literature, film and art that the Japanese really seem to express themselves. ~ Henry Rollins

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

When I got to college I simply decided that I could speak French, because I just could not spend any more time in French classes. I went ahead and took courses on French literature, some of them even taught in French. ~ Lev Grossman

I seek to take my audience on an emotional roller-coaster ride, a journey of laughter and tears and every sentiment in between. ~ Marc Royston

Jocelyn did not want to always remain the same. Where was the adventure in that? ~ Heidi Schulz