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- Nov 07, 2020
Great Book Quotes
What separates a great book from a merely good one is rarely just plot. These quotes describe the feeling of escapism a great book provides, the way it can leave a reader exhausted after living several lives in its pages, and the harder truth that a genuinely great book can still be ignored in its own time. One quote even measures a graphic novel against the standard of great prose literature and finds it wanting, a reminder that greatness in books is judged by demanding, shifting standards.
A great book asks something of its reader beyond passive attention, offering escapism, exhaustion, and the sense of having lived more than one life by the final page.
- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- History
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- Nov 07, 2020
You can write a great book and be ignored. Literary history is full of classics that were under-appreciated in their own time.
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- Nov 07, 2020
A great book provides escapism for me. The artistry and the creativity in a story are better than any drugs.
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think Maus I is better than Maus II. The standard here is whether or not it's as good as a great book of prose literature and by that standard, no, it's not that great.
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- Nov 07, 2020
I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.
- Experience
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- Nov 07, 2020
The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.
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- Nov 07, 2020
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think my background in film taught me that a great book adaptation is not always slavishly faithful to the source material.
- Inspirational
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- Nov 07, 2020
The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
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- Nov 07, 2020
The truly great books are always novels: 'Anna Karenina,' 'The Brothers Karamazov,' 'The Magic Mountain.' Just as with 'Shahnameh,' I browse these books from time to time to remember how a great book works on us or to teach my students at Columbia University.
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
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- Nov 07, 2020
For me, one of the hallmarks of a really great book is that I'm seeing it in my head while I'm reading.
- Experience
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that the mark of a great book is that it will meet you wherever you're at and you'll feel and experience something new and different each time you read it.
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- Nov 07, 2020
There's a book that I read, really a great book - it's called 'Lone Survivor' and I think they're trying to make it into a movie. I would love to play Marcus Luttrell, who was the author and the 'lone survivor.' He's a national hero; he's very courageous and heroic in insurmountable danger, so it's something I'd love to explore.
- Drafts
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- Nov 07, 2020
The first drafts of my novels have all been written in longhand, and then I type them up on my old electric. I have resisted getting a computer because I distrust the whole PC thing. I don't think a great book has yet been written on computer.
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- Nov 07, 2020
I like to read and dream and create music that is based on the imagery of text. If you have the combination of a great book and a great filmmaker, what could be better for the composer?
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- Nov 07, 2020