It is important to say all the great thoughts again, without knowing that they have already been said. – Elias Canetti
The paranoiac is the exact image of the ruler. The only difference is their position in the world. One might even think the paranoiac the more impressive of the two because he is sufficient unto himself and cannot be shaken by failure. – Elias Canetti
Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune? – Elias Canetti
The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation. – Elias Canetti
Dr. Richard Bentley (1662-1742)… is said one day, on finding his son reading a novel, to have remarked—’Why read a book that you cannot quote?’— a saying which affords an amusing illustration of the nature and object of his literary studies. – Cyclopædia of English Literature edited by Robert Chambers, 1844
People who rarely read long books, or even short stories, still appreciate the greatest examples of the shortest literary genres. I have long been fascinated by these short genres. They seem to lie just where my heart is, somewhere between literature and philosophy. – Gary Saul Morson, The Long and Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel, 2012