literary analysis quotes

It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.

I must have read every issue of ‚Punch‘ published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour – that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like ‚Three Men in a Boat.‘

I don’t like allegories.

Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

People ask me if there are going to be stories of Harry Potter as an adult. Frankly, if I wanted to, I could keep writing stories until Harry is a senior citizen, but I don’t know how many people would actually want to read about a 65 year old Harry still at Hogwarts playing bingo with Ron and Hermione.

At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write. Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.

I’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.