{"quotes":[{"text":"A clever schoolboy's reaction to his reading is most naturally expressed by parody or imitation.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["criticism","education","literary-theory","reading"],"id":6069,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"Literature is like phosphorus: it shines with its maximum brilliance and the moment when it attempts to die.","author":"Roland Barthes","tags":["literary-theory","literature","roland-barthes"],"id":8153,"author_id":"Roland+Barthes"},{"text":"Like ´Bluebeard´, the fairy tale of ´Snow White´does not record a single, appalling crime, but testifies to a structural and endemic conflict in society that was political and social as well as personal, producing many, many instances of similar violence.","author":"Marina Warner","tags":["fairy-tales","history","literary-theory"],"id":41202,"author_id":"Marina+Warner"},{"text":"I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...Two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation—none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else—suggests that he is not happy!","author":"Roman Payne","tags":["advice-for-writers","aleph","art-of-literature","hip","birth","born-again","characterization","coelho","cohen","craft","craftsmanship","critique","critique-of-modernity","dialogue","education","educational","excitement","fame","fame-and-fortune","famous-","faults","fortune","grammar","grammatical","happiness","happiness-positive-outlook","happy","human-potential","humaneness","imperfection","inspiration","inspirational-attitude","inspirational-life","inspiring","inspiring","islam","islamic","islamic","koran","leonard-cohen","life","life-and-death","literary-criticism","literary-theory","literature","narration","novelist","novels","paradise","paulo-coelho","payne","phrasing","publishing","reincarnation","roman","roman-payne","sentence-structure","truth","writing","writing-advice","writing-and-art","writing-art","writing-as-a-profession","writing-craft","writing-from-the-heart"],"id":132550,"author_id":"Roman+Payne"},{"text":"Some have speculated that the way [Albert] Camus died made his theories on absurdity a self-fulfilling prophecy. Others would say it was the triumphant meaningful way he lived that allowed him to rise heroically above absurdity.","author":"Aberjhani","tags":["aberjhani-on-albert-camus","absurdity","albert-camus","albert-camus-100th-birthday","algerian-","essays-on-albert-camus","famous-","french-","literary-theory","literature","literature-of-commitment","nobel-laureates","nobel-prize-in-literature","philosophy","prophecy","winners-of-the-nobel-prize"],"id":176917,"author_id":"Aberjhani"},{"text":"Theories about world literature, of which fairy tale is a fundamental part, emphasize the porousness of borders, geographical and inguistic: no frontiercan keep a good story from roaming. It will travel, and travel far, and travel back again in a different guise, a changed mood, and, above all, a new meaning.","author":"Marina Warner","tags":["fairy-tale","history","literary-theory"],"id":202991,"author_id":"Marina+Warner"},{"text":"Punctuation was, it is sad to say, invented a very long time ago. Even more frustrating, it has remained with us ever since.","author":"Anne Elizabeth Moore","tags":["education","funny-humor","funny","literary-theory","punctuation","writing"],"id":206614,"author_id":"Anne+Elizabeth+Moore"},{"text":"Your page stands against you and says to you that you are a thief.","author":"Marcus Valerius Martialis","tags":["creative-process","creativity","literary-theory","literature","tradition","writers","writing","writing-process"],"id":212481,"author_id":"Marcus+Valerius+Martialis"},{"text":"The truth is not that we need the critics in order to enjoy the authors, but that we need the authors in order to enjoy the critics.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["criticism","literary-theory"],"id":250208,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"When the critic has said everything in his power about a literary text, he has still said nothing; for the very existence of literature implies that it cannot be replaced by non-literature.","author":"Tzvetan Todorov","tags":["literary-criticism","literary-theory","literature"],"id":276101,"author_id":"Tzvetan+Todorov"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":20,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}