- Friends
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
English Literature Quotes
Voices shaped by studying English literature.
These quotes trace how an English literature degree shaped different lives: one path through the University of Birmingham into theater, another through UCLA before a year of travel, and a third spent filling gaps in a literary background at graduate school. See our Literature quotes.
- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Back To School
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
I went to graduate school with zero expectation. I kind of backed into it. I wanted to go back to school because I felt gaps in my literary background. I studied mostly twentieth-century English literature in college, so I thought, 'Maybe I'll go back for my writing.'
- More
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
I fell even more deeply in love with Tolkien's legendarium after studying Old English literature at uni, as I got a sense of the historical events and cultures that Tolkien used to create his world. My favourite of his imaginary locations is Lothlorien.
- Computers
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
I grew up loving computers and math, actually. I also loved English literature and French, but I became obsessed with computers when the Apple II was coming out.
- More
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.
- History
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
Had I not gone to Japan in 1986, had I stayed home and majored in English literature as I'd intended to do, I might indeed have become an investment banker, an outcome that perhaps would have proved a more severe blow to the health of the U.S. economy than to the history of the novel.
- Girl
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
When I was writing stories about Chinese American characters in my fiction classes, I'd get comments like, 'You should consider writing more universal stories.' But anything can happen to a Chinese American girl - just as much of the canon of English literature involves white men or women.
- Excelled
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
School was rough for me. I was a good student in middle school, but high school wasn't so fun. I still pulled through, though! I excelled in art, fashion, history and English literature - anything creative. Math and science I struggled a bit more in.
- Know
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
Nineteenth-century English literature I know; 19th-century sewage systems, not so much.
- Important
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
I was always drawn to teachers who made class interesting. In high school, I enjoyed my American and English literature classes because my teachers, Jeanne Dorsey and Dani Barton, created an environment where interaction was important.
- Literature
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
There's always a host of voices you're inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He's one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens.
- American
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it aside for a while, because I got very realistic at one point.
- Me
- |
- Nov 07, 2020
I loved reading when I was young. I was just completely taken by stories. And I remember taking that into English literature at school and taking that into Shakespeare and finding that opened up a whole world of self-expression to me that I didn't have access to previously.
- Graduates
- |
- Nov 07, 2020