• “This feeling of membership in the collective human experience across time and space is the highest achievement of culture, and nothing contributes more to its renewal in every generation than literature” → I like the theme of membership and connectedness this quote embodies but also how it importantly highlights the need for renewal. I feel that sometimes literature can seem closed off and like the “classics” are set. The renewal of generations bringing in more concepts, social challenges, and viewpoints is a great way to update what resonates with the people. Which, as was stated, is how we travel beyond set boundaries and share our collective experiences. This quote also makes me wonder at what point contemporary literature becomes a classic and piece of writing understood by most to be influential? 
  • “Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature” → I understand what this quote is getting at, yet I can’t help thinking of the negative ways literary works were used to push forward all the examples above. Political propaganda and fake news of today make it incredibly hard to find a work of literature that is fully truthful and doesn’t create even more inflammatory conditions between groups of people. Literary writings of the past even claimed biological reasons for slavery based on “scientific findings”. Today, we know these works are atrocities and completely untrue, but what did people think when they came out? Literature can create some deep divisions within people, especially political, but is there a way to circumvent that? I do think that being well-read and exposed to many different ideas and views can help make society have more well-informed and intellectual thinkers, but there has to be an acknowledgment of the negatives as well.