How Literature Saved My Life Quotes

“Samuel Johnson: A book should either allow us to escape existence or teach us how to endure it .”
― David Shields, How Literature Saved My Life

“IT’S HARDLY a coincidence that “Shipping Out,” Wallace’s most well-known essay, appeared only a month before Infinite Jest, his most well-known novel, was published. Both are about the same thing (amusing ourselves to death), with different governing données (lethally entertaining movie, lethally pampering leisure cruise). In an interview after the novel came out, Wallace, asked what’s so great about writing, said that we’re existentially alone on the planet—I can’t know what you’re thinking and feeling, and you can’t know what I’m thinking and feeling—so writing, at its best, is a bridge constructed across the bridge of human loneliness.”
― David Shields, How Literature Saved My Life

“I wanted literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn't lie about this --which is wha makes it essential.”
― David Shields, How Literature Saved My Life

“Ne düşündüğünü, ne hissettiğini bilmem mümkün değil, sen de benim ne düşündüğümü ve hissettiğimi bilemezsin. Yazmak bu yüzden, en iyi ihtimalle, insanın yalnızlığına doğru uzanan bir köprü inşa etmektir.”
― David Shields, How Literature Saved My Life