There is a puzzle here, though: the fact that this sentence has no obvious practical import is what mainly creates the possibility that it might be literature, but could we not achieve that effect by lifting other sentences out of the contexts that make it clear what they do? Suppose we take a sentence out of an instruction booklet, a recipe, an advertisement, a newspaper, and set it down on a page in isolation: Stir vigorously and allow to sit five minutes. Is this literature? Have I made it literature by extracting it from the practical context of a recipe? Perhaps, but it is scarcely clear that I have. Something seems lacking, the sentence seems not to have the resources for you to work with. To make it literature you need. perhaps, to imagine a title whose relation to the line would pose a problem and exercise the imagination: for instance. The Secret or The Quality of Mercy