It is difficult to think of an origin without wanting to go back beyond it. - Terry Eagleton

Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur "Thou still unravished bride of quietness," then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary.

There seems to be something in humanity which will not bow meekly to the insolence of power.

If the masses are not thrown a few novels, they may react by throwing up a few barricades.