Literary Stimulation Quotes

Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.

Television captures the mind but does not liberate it. A good book at once stimulates and frees the mind.

You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry, I read Patti Smith's autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.

The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

When my own writing needs a perk, I open Zukofsky and read from "A" - particularly sections "22" and "23." It can be opaque, but I love the intensity.

The work of one author or artist may stimulate another author or artist to push the edge, to take the risk, to go where the field hasn't gone before. The result -very exciting children's literature and art ... exciting both for the professional and for the intended audience, the children.

Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.

It did occur to me that the effect of good literature may be as dizzying as that of alcohol.

I'm not really into comfort books. There are too many of those as it is. Just sort of narcotic books, like my grandmother used to read. They have value like Paxil has value, but there's plenty of them in the world already. There's a shortage of confronting, stimulating, exciting books.

What is indispensable to inspiration? ...sound sleep and the provocation of a good book or a companion.