M. H. Abrams quotes

It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable. (M. H. Abrams)
If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem. View quote
M. H. Abrams
If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false. View quote
M. H. Abrams
The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves. View quote
M. H. Abrams
Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading. View quote
M. H. Abrams
The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives. View quote
M. H. Abrams
We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. View quote
M. H. Abrams
Life without literature is a life reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what you're doing. It shows you possibilities you haven't thought of. It enables you to live the lives of other people than yourself. It broadens you, it makes you more human. It makes life enjoyable. View quote
M. H. Abrams
I think most of the things I published have been published out of desperation, not because they were perfected. View quote
M. H. Abrams
I've always been surprised at the degree of success of The Mirror and the Lamp and the range and duration of esteem for it. ... I had no reason to expect in 1953 that it would appeal to more than a specialized group interested in literary criticism. I think one of the reasons why it's been of interest to a broad spectrum of readers is because one of its emphases was on the role of metaphors in steering human thinking. It was a very early book to insist on the role of metaphors in cognition, as well as in imaginative literature - to claim that key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions. ... Natural Supernaturalism is quite well known and even used as a textbook, but it never seems to have attracted the acclaim of its predecessor. View quote
M. H. Abrams
When I was a graduate student, the leading spirits at Harvard were interested in the history of ideas. (M. H. Abrams)
We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background. View quote
M. H. Abrams
If you don't set your writing - and teaching - at a level that makes them stretch, they are never going to develop their intellectual muscle. View quote
M. H. Abrams
One of the joys of teaching with the anthology is to watch the excitement grow as students, who may think the past dull and irrelevant, find how fresh and new and powerful are the kinds of writings that are hundreds of years old. View quote
M. H. Abrams
When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that. View quote
M. H. Abrams
He always violated your expectations. ... He was a character. View quote
M. H. Abrams
It's a pleasure that you don't outgrow the anthology. View quote
M. H. Abrams
John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. I like to read Archie Ammons, my great friend. And Harold Bloom, another former student. View quote
M. H. Abrams
When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that. I think its heyday has passed, but it's had an effect and will continue to have an effect. View quote
M. H. Abrams
We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. The appeal of literature is that it is so thoroughly a human thing - by, for and about human beings. If you lose that focus, you obviate the source of the power and permanence of literature. View quote
M. H. Abrams
Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions. (M. H. Abrams)
John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. And Harold Bloom, another former student. View quote
M. H. Abrams
I think the hardest thing to teach a student is that what he or she puts down on paper is changeable. View quote
M. H. Abrams
All students are capable of growth. View quote
M. H. Abrams
Pay attention to your students. Hear what they say, try to find out what their capacities are, what make sense to them. Adapt what you are doing and saying to those capacities, but make your students stretch upward. View quote
M. H. Abrams