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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.

— M. H. Abrams Cornell Chronicle interview (1999)

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More quotes by M. H. Abrams

Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions.

If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false.

Cornell Chronicle interview (1999)

The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives.

Cornell Chronicle interview (1999)

I think the hardest thing to teach a student is that what he or she puts down on paper is changeable.

People's Education interview (2007)

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.

Cornell Chronicle interview (1999)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: M. H. Abrams (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.