Edith Wharton Quotes

A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.

What makes a classic is difficult to define. It's entirely subjective, of course. And the term is employed far too promiscuously.

The newest books are those that never grow old.

To me, when something is classic, whether it came out today or thirty years ago, it falls all in the same pot.

The classic literature is always modern.

A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.

It's true with fashion, acting, anything: Make sure it's timeless, but at the same time, there's got to be a little hint of risk.

I love things that age well - things that don't date, that stand the test of time and that become living examples of the absolute best.

What makes a book great, a so-called classic, it its quality of always being modern, of its author, though he be long dead, continuing to speak to each new generation.

From an art perspective, I don't know how you get better than 'Beetlejuice.' In terms of originality and a look, it's 100% unique.

Negative books can be bestsellers, but seldom classics.

Never forget that what becomes timeless was once truly new.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Somehow, stars have a lot of class if they are done right; they never have a shelf life.

I try to make sure that I make music that can stand the test of time.

It can happen that a book, unlike its authors, grows younger as the years pass.

Dickens writes such brilliant characters and stories, and his themes and social commentary are still so relevant. I think that's why he's still so loved today.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.

I'm not big on sequels; I've done them, but I like doing little things that have their own timelessness to them, classic type things, and then you go onto something new.

My material is as new as anything on the dinner table. What difference does it make if I'm 70 or if I'm 20? The audience knows they aren't getting any old stories from me.

The work that lasts over time is the work which still speaks to us when all contemporary interest in that work is extinct.

A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it's there complete in the mind, if only at the back.

What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In everyday life, you can tell the same joke thrice and, thrice getting a laugh, become the life of the party. In art, though, this sort of conduct is called 'cliche.'

The thing about Pixar, they don't do the 'trend is your friend.' They're really about timeless story telling, and that's pretty great.