The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.

With fiction you can talk about plot character and narrative whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with.

How do you make any sense of history art or literature without knowing the stories and iconography of your own culture and all the world's main religions?

I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.

The study of history and philosophy accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature should be for lawyers and engineers as well as for those who study in arts faculties.

I think I was a good student because I jumped over a school. My main interest was basically history and literature. Sports were basically basketball and swimming at a pool. I was so happy.

When I arrived at Columbia I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry French history French literature.

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.

A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic a mere working mason if he possesses some knowledge of these he may venture to call himself an architect.