In literature, questions of fact or truth are subordinated to the primary literary aims of producing a structure of words for its own sake, and the sign-values of symbols are subordinated to their importance as a structure of interconnected motifs.

The tremendous efficiency and economy of the book has once again demonstrated itself. It's the world's most patient medium.

To bring anything really to life in literature we can't be lifelike: we have to be literature-like

Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have "really happened,"or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.

Every human society possesses a mythology which is inherited, transmitted and diversified by literature.

No matter how much experience we may gather in life, we can never in life get the dimension of experience that the imagination gives us. Only the arts and sciences can do that, and of these, only literature gives us the whole sweep and range of human imagination as it sees itself

Americans like to make money; Canadians like to audit it. I don't know of any other country where the accountant enjoys a higher social and moral status.