Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its ...
I would have to say the novel 'War and Peace' influenced me more than any other book. This greatest of novels demonstrated to me the enormous power of literature and fired me up with a desire to become a writer, to participate in what I considered th...
I am drawn mostly, insistently to the human voice. How powerful and necessary the solo voice, the experience of being someone, something else for a little while. This is and will remain literature’s killer app, the thing most impervious to threat b...
This irritated or puzzled such students of literature and their professors as were accustomed to ‘serious’ courses replete with ‘trends ’ and ‘schools ’ and ‘myths ’ and ‘symbols ’ and ‘social comment ’ and something unspeakab...
The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire bla...
I think we should model parts of the English language after the Inuits, who have 52 words for snow. Why don't we have 52 words for love? Instead, I have to rely on metaphors like, Her love was as pure as yellow snow.
In America, doctors, lawyers, generals, actors, television people and politicians are admired and rewarded. Not teachers. Teaching is the downstairs maid of professions. Teachers are told to use the service door or go round the back. They are congrat...
Almásy: What do you love? Katharine Clifton: What do I love? Almásy: Say everything. Katharine Clifton: Hm, let's see... Water. Fish in it. And hedgehogs; I love hedgehogs. Almásy: And what else? Katharine Clifton: Marmite - I'm addicted. And bath...
Hattori Hanzo: What brings you to Okinawa? The Bride: I'm here to see a man. Hattori Hanzo: Oh yeah? You have a friend living in Okinawa? The Bride: Not quite. Hattori Hanzo: Not a friend? The Bride: I've never met him. Hattori Hanzo: Never? Who is h...
Combo: But I've got one question to ask you. Do you consider yourself English, or Jamaican? [There's a long uneasy silence, as Milky looks around nervously to the rest of his friends... ] Milky: [eventually] English. Combo: Lovely, lovely, love you f...
I never knew what language they'd lapse into when fucked - Urdu or Telugu or a mix of both (only the techies came in English).
Don't fuck with an English major. They keep lots of useless crap trapped in their heads. Once in a while they let some of it out and it bites you square on the ass.
I'd studied English since the first grade but considered it a murky language, one whose grammar seemed to have been made up on the fly
When I was old enough, I was 21 years of age, I decided to come to America. I did it illegally, so I jumped the border. I didn't speak any English.
The English Bible - a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.
I was always behind in class. There was people in my class who was amazing at art, amazing at maths, amazing at English, but I wasn't clever with anything, even though I tried my hardest.
I find the English amazing how they got over 7/7. There were no multiple memorials with people sobbing as they would have been in America. There, they are constantly scaring people, but at the same time, people think nothing of going to see a therapi...
If I can't find a project that I'm really interested in, I'll just go back to college where I've been studying art history and French. I'm also going to study English and philosophy - the whole curriculum!
Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world, its ayatollah, deliverer, and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk, Pop Art, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon, and Catholicism.
The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.
Bad people? What kind of bad people? Members of the Church of Satan? Insurance salesmen? People who don’t speak English?
