Preface, pg. viii
A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999)
“But a Book is only the Heart's Portrait- every Page a Pulse.”
As cited in: Ching-chih Chen (1980) Quantitative measurement and dynamic library service. p. 52.
Libraries of the future, 1965
“The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page.”
Attributed to Augustine in "Select Proverbs of All Nations" (1824) by "Thomas Fielding" (John Wade), p. 216 http://www.archive.org/details/selectproverbsa00wadegoog, and later in the form "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page", as quoted in 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1995) by Evan Esar, p. 822; this has not been located in Augustine's writings, and may be a variant translation of an expression found in Le Cosmopolite (1753) by Fougeret de Monbron: "The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has seen only one's own country."
Misattributed
McKeon, Belinda. Metaphysics gets a Mayo accent http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/metaphysics-gets-a-mayo-accent-1.441635, The Irish Times (13 May 2005)
“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.”
“Go on. Treat me like the page of a book. Your book.”
Jerome, to Nagiko
The Pillow Book
Preface; Variant translations:
It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books — setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them... A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books.
The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary . . . More reasonable, more inept, more indolent, I have preferred to write notes upon imaginary books.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)
“You a slave to a page in my rhyme book”
Made You Look
On Albums, God's Son (2002)
