George Ade Quotes

I did go through graduate school and I like to do research, to create something that has a certain objective solidity. The same thing influences my fiction to some degree, because, you know, my fiction is often based on history that I've read.

The writer studies literature, not the world. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

As Oscar Wilde should have said, when bad ideas have nowhere else to go, they emigrate to America and become university courses.

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.

I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having to read a poem twice. Or even a book.

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

Perhaps the prevalence of pedantry may be largely accounted for by the common error of thinking that, because useful knowledge should be remembered, any kind of knowledge that is at all worth learning should be remembered too.

The world of scholarship is much more measured in its appreciation and also its criticism than the world of popular literature.

In the end, the humanities can only be defended by stressing how indispensable they are; and this means insisting on their vital role in the whole business of academic learning, rather than protesting that, like some poor relation, they don't cost much to be housed.

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.

Universities are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry

Just because I try to read a lot of stuff doesn't mean I can fully conceptualize all of these intense, big, abstract ideas.

The whole purpose of books is that we read them, and if you find you can't, it might not be your inadequacy that's to blame. 'Good' books can be pretty awful sometimes.

A writer could spend years reading already-published books just to gain a grasp of the historical terrain.

The whole business of reading English Literature in two years, to know it in any reputable sense of the word - let alone your learning to write English - is, in short, impossible.

I'm the type of person, my mind is too strong; I think too hard.

Centre-back takes more out of you mentally than physically.

The most important 6 inches on the battlefield is between your ears.

Problems are to the mind what exercise is to the muscles, they toughen and make strong.

As a kid you learn that there are thinkers and there are philosophers and there are theologian, and I'd hear little bits of the ideas that these people pursued or developed or created and I'd be really excited. Then I'll start to read it and I think, "Wait a minute, this is a rabbit hole. This isn't a gateway or a ticket to anything except itself."

If you keep your mind active, regularly take on mental challenges, and continually think about the right things, you will develop the disciplined thinking that will help you with whatever you endeavor to do.

Have read little and understood less.