Top 25 Quotes by George Steiner

I find so much writing colourless, small in its means, unwilling to take stylistic risks. Often it goes wrong; I am not the one to judge. Sometimes, I hope, it goes right.

Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence.

The journalistic vision sharpens to the point of maximum impact every event, every individual and social configuration; but the honing is uniform.

I learned early on that 'rabbi' means teacher, not priest.

I have students who are now in chairs in five continents. They invite me to their inaugurals. A tremendous reward.

My father loved poetry and music. But deep in himself he thought teaching the finest thing a person could do.

The age of the book is almost gone.

To many men... the miasma of peace seems more suffocating than the bracing air of war.

The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.

I'm sorry, I'm absolutely convinced that there is at the moment no realistic prospect for very much hope in human affairs.