The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion. George Steiner biographydomesticgray Change image and share on social
I believe that a work of art, like metaphors in language, can ask the most serious, difficult questions in a way which really makes the readers answer for themselves; that the work of art far more than an essay or a tract involves the reader, challenges him directly and brings him into the argument. George Steiner answerargumentart share on social
The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light. George Steiner castgeniuslight Change image and share on social
I have every reason to believe that an individual man or woman fluent in several tongues seduces, possesses, remembers differently according to his or her use of the relevant language. George Steiner differentlyfluentindividual Change image and share on social
Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity, do not easily resume life. George Steiner atrocityeasilylie Change image and share on social
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence. George Steiner borderinhabitlanguage Change image and share on social
The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital. George Steiner brainexpressionheart Change image and share on social
Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence. George Steiner deallanguagelarge Change image and share on social
My writing of fiction comes under a very general heading of those teachers, critics, scholars who like to try their own hand once or twice in their lives. George Steiner criticfictiongeneral Change image and share on social
Central to everything I am and believe and have written is my astonishment, naive as it seems to people, that you can use human speech both to bless, to love, to build, to forgive and also to torture, to hate, to destroy and to annihilate. George Steiner annihilateastonishmentbless share on social