A Quote by George R. R. Martin

The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James. James won, and it split literature into two streams. But it's a totally false dichotomy.

George R. R. Martin

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Back Between Dates Dichotomy Distinction False Feud Fiction Genre Henry James Literary Literature Louis Pernicious Robert Split Streams Stupid Totally Two

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George R. R. Martin
American - Novelist
Born: September 20, 1948

In ages past, there was less of a dichotomy between good literature and fun reads. In the twentieth century, I think, it split apart, so that you had serious fiction and genre fiction.

Ruth Glick

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender.

Philip Guedalla

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender

Philip Guedalla

I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread - Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks.

Ian Rankin

I liked teaching Henry James. When you look down at a Henry James novel from a helicopter height, you find an intricate spider web that all clings together.

Helen Vendler

Only idiots or snobs ever really thought less of 'genre books' of course. There are stupid books and there are smart books. There are well-written books and badly written books. There are fun books and boring books. All of these distinctions are vastly more important than the distinction between the literary and the non-literary.

Stephen Marche

I had the idea in my twenties that a writer could immediately become the late Henry James. Henry James himself had to mature. Even Saul Bellow did.

Cynthia Ozick

No author's writing more influenced my own than that of Robert Louis Stevenson. My first steampunk story, 'The Ape-box Affair,' is a sort of melange of Stevenson and P.G. Wodehouse.

James Blaylock

I think there are much bigger differences between players in this league than between coaches. There is a big gap between LeBron James and the small forward for whoever. Far bigger than between two coaches.

Jeff Van Gundy

I was in Venice teaching, so I reread Henry James's "The Wings of the Dove." I love James.

Stephen Greenblatt

That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand this?

Joyce Carol Oates

I'd like to go back in time and haunt Robert Louis Stevenson during his years in the South Pacific.

Marjorie Liu

I've been to two stadium gigs in my life. One was James Brown and the other was Pink Floyd. They both sounded the same. I couldn't tell the difference between James Brown and Pink Floyd. I've never liked stadiums.

Boz Burrell

In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.

Aleksandar Hemon

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

Oscar Wilde

The songs are not meant to be real life. They're meant to have a psychic - rather than a factual - bearing on the listener. It's rare that a song grounded in reality moves me because I don't feel like I'm getting the whole story. Songs are made to exist in and of themselves, like a great James Jones or Robert Louis Stevenson novel - they're not autobiographical, and yet there's a reality in every single page. It's real life of the imagination.

Will Oldham

A Quote by George R. R. Martin

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