Quotes by : Lionel Trilling

At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabric....

consistent affection for his characters is what sets Tolstoy apart. Flaubert is equally “objective,”....

What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.

Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility,....

Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution,....

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in....

Orwell clung with a kind of wry, grim pride to the old ways of the last class that had ruled the old....

Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than....

The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity....