English-language literature

🇬🇧J. R. R. Tolkien

Literature

Inklings

1892–1973

"I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones..."

🇺🇸Pearl S. Buck

Literature

1892–1973

"Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought."

🇬🇧Robert Burton

English-language literature

1577–1640

"Every schoolboy hath that famous testament of Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus at his fingers' end."

"They Never Wanted To Be Themselves , New York Times, May 24, 1987"

🇺🇸Alexander Chee

Literature

b. 1967

"I think fiction is the thing you invent to fit the shape of what you learned and nonfiction is the thing you invent to fit the shape of what you found or maybe even what you can’t run away from…"

🇺🇸Erica Jong

Literature

Feminism

b. 1942

"If you apologize for something that isn't your fault in the first place, you, in effect, confirm their belief that it is your fault."

🇮🇪John le Carré

Literature

1931–2020

"I remain terrified of the capacity of the media, the capacity of spin doctors, here and abroad, particularly the United States media, to perpetuate false lies, perpetuate lies."

🇺🇸Paul Fussell

Literature

1924–2012

"Paul Fussell, Literary Scholar and Critic, Is Dead at 88" by Bruce Weber, The New York Times"

🇺🇸Adrianne Wadewitz

Music

1977–2014

"Wikipedia needs to recruit women, yes, but, more importantly, it needs to recruit feminists. And feminists can be of any gender."

"A great teacher and a great writer need not be an efficient supervisor."

🇬🇧Edmund Charles Blunden

Literature

1896–1974

"A large collection of Blunden's papers is located at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin"

🇬🇧Geoffrey Hill

Literature

1932–2016

"We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We’re difficult to ourselves, we’re difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other."

🇺🇸Norman Maclean

Literature

1902–1990

"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash."

Dorothy Wordsworth

Literature

1771–1855

"Miss Dorothy did best part o' pitting his potry togidder. He let it fa' and she cam efter and gethered it oop for him ye kna."

🇺🇸Robert Conquest

Literature

1917–2015

"On political matters basically the best, though not infallible, source is rumor …"

Lin Yutang

Literature

1895–1976

"The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy."

🇬🇧Israel Zangwill

Literature

Cultural Zionism

1864–1926

"The past is our cradle, not our prison, and there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition."

🇺🇸Billy Collins

Literature

b. 1941

"It is important for the poet not to be emotional because you cannot see the world clearly with tears in your eyes."

🇺🇸Eknath Easwaran

Religion

1910–1999

"We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others."

🇦🇺Germaine Greer

gender studies

Feminism

b. 1939

"Consensus politics means that you cannot afford to give the many-headed beast, the public, anything to vote against, for voting against is what gargantuan pseudodemocracy has to come down to."