Lafcadio Hearn Quotes

There is a quiet revolution going on in the study of the Bible. At its center is a growing awareness that the Bible is a work of literature and that the methods of literary scholarship are a necessary part of any complete study of the Bible.

Learning to read the Bible in the light of the times in which it was written is critical.

'Jane Eyre,' when I think of that book, it conjures up the best moments of college English courses. Literature is extraordinary, especially when you have a good professor.

The writer studies literature, not the world.

I've often taken important classical, biblical or literary stories and interrogated them. I have tried to reinvigorate Lot by interpreting it differently.

I don't read novels, but my semiotics study influenced everything about the way I read and edit and write.

The question of manuscript changes is very important for literary criticism, the psychology of creation and other aspects of the study of literature.

Critics and academics often employ theories and philosophers in order to help them understand and dissect movies and books.

I get scripts and think, 'There's not enough here to get my teeth stuck into.' That's a result of studying English, where you luxuriate in these big, lush novels.

All they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

What on earth is modern exegesis up to? Oh, little lazy one! Some red wine and up! Off you go, brandishing your fork, stripped of Ophelia's useless ornaments, fire in your large nostrils, out to rake the muck of metaphors.

They were like English teachers who took the fun out of a perfectly good book by breaking it down into themes and sentence structures

But I do think it's important to remember that writers do not have a monopoly of wisdom on their books. They can be wrong about their own books, they can often learn about their own books.

I think that if you get too close to the character, if you do too much historical research, you may find yourself defending your view of a character against the author's view, and I think that's terribly dangerous.

I have an editor in my head, that's why I can't read Harry Potter, because Rowling is such a lousy writer.

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

Most students of literature can pick apart a metaphor or spot an ethnic stereotype, but not many of them can say things like: 'The poem's sardonic tone is curiously at odds with its plodding syntax.'

I always wanted to put a sign up on the road to Yale saying, 'Beware: Deconstruction Ahead.'

Beginning in the late 18th century, some German scholars began to regard Holy Scripture not as a single revelation but a sequence of inspired texts that occurred in specific times and places and were subject to varied and multiple meanings.

My life has included a study of Shakespeare and to me it's very natural, but I know that it's not always accessible to other people.

I'm not an enormous proponent of plot as a reader. It's about other things; my reading has become specialized over the years.

If the Apostles and the writers of the gospels were to enjoy a brief stay on earth and return to the company of men, they would be astonished at how many different analyses and approaches were being used to interpret their books, and how many bizarre constructions had been assembled from the trivial notions of the sophists.

Shakespeare didn't work at all for me.

Vladimir Nabokov on 'Bleak House' or Henry James on 'The House of the Seven Gables' prove that reading can be an exciting subject in itself, full of passionate encounters, contradictory judgments, striking discoveries, and unexpected reversals.

Subject matter is sort of overemphasized in the way books get discussed, I think.