Quotes about books
page 12

“Simply handing over your iPod to a friend, your blind date, or the total stranger sitting next to you on the plane opens you up like a book." (Steven Levy)”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

“She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: NOS4A2

History, Time

“No one knows as well as I how much nonsense is printed in books.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton

“So perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions and get on with the book.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

“Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Success
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870)

Confidence

“It's in being read that a book becomes a book, and in each of a million different readings a book become one of a million different books…”

Mohsin Hamid book How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Source: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Reading

“Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.”

Arnold Lobel (1933–1987) American children's illustrator and writer

Love, Time, Reading

“She was too tired to feel anything more, she wanted a book to do to her what books did: take away the world, slide it aside for a little bit, and let her please, please just be somewhere and somebody else”

Lev Grossman book The Magician's Land

Source: The Magician's Land

World, Feeling

“I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgement bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

God, World

“Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Friendship, Madness

“There are all kinds of writers. The best writers write children's books.”

Richard Scarry (1919–1994) author and illustrator from the United States

Source: Busy, Busy Town

Children

“I have consistently loved books that I've read when I've been sick in bed.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

Love, Reading

“You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read…”

Keri Hulme book The Bone People

Source: The Bone People

Reading

“Where is the woman who has ever really torn from her heart the image that has been once fixed in it by a true love? Books tell us that such unearthly creatures have existed - but what does our own experiences say in answer to books?”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Love, Heart

“A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

“She loved the smell of books, the feel of books, the look of them on the shelf.”

Elizabeth Peters (1927–2013) American author and egyptologist

Source: Houses of Stone

Love, Feeling

“There are books that I own that somehow even without reading them they mean something to me. So I think people have a relationship with books in a library whether you’ve come specifically to read them or not.”

Rem Koolhaas (1944) Dutch architect (b.1944)

People, Thinking, Reading

“Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Way, Time, Reading

“It was the kind of library
he had only read about in books.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Reading

“To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Drawing

“Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?”

David Baldacci book The Camel Club

Source: The Camel Club

Peaceful, People, Reading

“Books are flesh-and-blood ideas and cry out, silently, when put to the torch.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Idea, Cry

“books are like confort food without the calories”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Source: Home Safe

Food

“I've never seen anyone get so excited over books before. You'd think they were diamonds.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Thinking

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.”

Patricia A. McKillip The Bell at Sealey Head

Source: The Bell at Sealey Head

People

“In Tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Secret

“People who prefer e-books… think that books merely take up space. This is true, but so do your children and Prague and the Sistine Chapel.”

Joe Queenan (1950) American writer

Source: One for the Books

Children, People, Thinking

“Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Lie, Flowers

“A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen-and-a-half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest. A bear must have his secrets, after all; they make him seem attractive and mysterious.”

Walter Moers The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Source: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Secret

“Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Almansor: A Tragedy (1823), as translated in True Religion (2003) by Graham Ward, p. 142
Variant translations:
Wherever books are burned, men in the end will also burn.
Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people.
Where they burn books, they will also burn people.
It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people.
Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings.
Where they burn books, they also burn people.
Them that begin by burning books, end by burning men.
Variant: Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.

People

“What kind of scholar was I? Or was I a scholar at all? My ignorance was enormous. Beside it my knowledge was nothing. My hunger for learning, not so much to improve my lot as to understand my world, had led me to study and to thought. Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”

Louis L'Amour book The Walking Drum

Source: The Walking Drum (1984), Ch. 25

Hunger, World, Understanding, Knowledge

“The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the end of our story-book."

(, 3 October 1892)”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

Source: Selected Prose

Reading

“If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

Light, Chance

“Books are carefully folded forests/void of autumn/bound from the sun”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Autumn, Sun

“She walked to the rear door and took out a bobby pin from her pocket. Hugo watched as she fiddled with the pin inside the lock until it clicked and the door opened. "How did you learn to do that?" asked Hugo. "Books," answered Isabelle.”

Brian Selznick book The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Learning

“Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

World, Waiting, Reading

“Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Reading

“Why is it that people who wouldn't dream of stealing anything else think it's perfectly all right to steal books?”

Helene Hanff book 84, Charing Cross Road

Source: 84, Charing Cross Road

People, Dreams, Thinking

“There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book.”

Frank Serafini (1945) American politician

Hate, Children, Reading

“What's crazy is living your life according to some book written by someone who couldn't imagine what your life would be like.”

James Frey book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Life, Imagination

“But I was still alive, and in my book, where there's life, there's hope.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

Life, Hope

“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Way

“Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

World

“You know what they say: When people start burning books they'll soon burn human beings.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

People

“The summer movies are coming out. My advice: just stay home and burn a good book.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Home, Summer

“Warmth, perfume, rugs, soft lights, books. They do not appease me. I am aware of time passing, of all the world contains that I have not seen, of all the interesting people I have not met.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: A Cafe in Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal, Volume 3

People, World, Light, Time

“Anything we need to know, we can learn it from a book. Reading, careful study, a little practice, and we’re throwing knives expertly, overhauling engines, speaking Esperanto like natives.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

Study, Learning, Reading

“You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you.”

Stephen King book Night Shift

Source: Night Shift

“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Life, Personality

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. […] it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

Ernest Hemingway book Green Hills of Africa

Part I, Ch. 1
Green Hills of Africa (1935)

Literature

“If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

“She gazed around with a bored air. "This feels just like. But shouldn't you lawyer up before I throw the book at you? No? So what's in the IV bag?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

Feeling

“I wanted to read immediately. The only fear was that of books coming to an end.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

Fear, Reading

“My books are friends that never fail me."

(; 17 March 1817)”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“That which others hear or read of, I felt and practised myself; they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholizing.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Source: The Anatomy of Melancholy

Knowledge, Reading

“Temeraire said, 'It is very nice how many books there are, indeed. And on so many subjects!”

Naomi Novik book His Majesty's Dragon

Source: His Majesty's Dragon

“Don't judge a book by its cover”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

“My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I'm quite prone to such bouts of deplorability--take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Behavior, Reading

“A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Education of a Wandering Man

Thinking

“Loads of children read books about dinosaurs, underwater monsters, dragons, witches, aliens, and robots. Essentially, the people who read SF, fantasy and horror haven't grown out of enjoying the strange and weird.”

China Miéville (1972) English writer

Children, People, Reading

“The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours. Against the blue candlewick bedspread the white pages of my open book, illuminated by a circle of lamplight, were the gateway to another world.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

World

“I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books…. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Women, Men, History, Communication

“You've done so many things and read so many books. Do you still believe in happy endings?"
"Oh my Lord, yes." Bernadette's hands were pressed against each other like a book, like a prayer. "I guess I would. I've had about a hundred of them.”

Karen Joy Fowler The Jane Austen Book Club

Source: The Jane Austen Book Club

Reading, Happiness

“I don't know myself, what to do, where to go… I lie in the crack of a book for my comfort… it's what the world offers… please leave me alone to dream as I fancy.”

William H. Gass book Omensetter's Luck

Source: Omensetter's Luck

Lie, World, Dreams

“The Facts were right there waiting for me, hidden in old books written by people who weren't afraid to be honest”

Ernest Cline book Ready Player One

Source: Ready Player One

People, Waiting

“The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Love, Learning

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Men, Marriage, Waiting

“When I think of you, and you are not there, I see you in my mind's eye always with a book in your hand.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Thinking

“Stories never really end… even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkspell

“Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living

Art, Understanding, Sense, Reading

“sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

Source: Half Broke Horses

Reading

“Give me a room whose every nook is dedicated to a book.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

“Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Love, Boy

“A man is known by the books he reads.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Reading

“To use an electronics analogy, closing a book on a bookmark is like pressing the Stop button, whereas when you leave the book facedown, you've only pressed Pause.”

Anne Fadiman (1953) American essayist, journalist and magazine editor

Source: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

“It's hopeless! Tomorrow there'll be even more books I should have read than there are today.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

Reading

“You cannot open a book without learning something.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Learning

“We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.”

Umberto Eco book The Name of the Rose

Source: The Name of the Rose

World

“Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies.”

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet

"On Delany the Magician", a foreword to Trouble on Triton (1996) by Samuel R. Delany, and reprinted in Acker's collection Bodies of Work (1996)
Source: Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia
Context: Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies. Aeneas did. Odysseus did. Listen to Delany, a prophet.

Time, Reading, Dead

“I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Beauty

“A book, too, can be a star, “explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

The Expanding Universe (1963)
Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Life, Star, Universe

“The Princess Bride
S. Morgenstern's
Classic Tale of True Love
and High Adventure

You had to admire a guy who called his own new book a classic before it was published and anyone had a chance to read it.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Love, Guy, Chance, Reading

“For if we're destroyed, the knowledge is dead… We're nothing more than dust jackets for books… so many pages to a person…”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Knowledge, Personality, Dead

“In the dark, with the windows lit and the rows of books glittering, the library is a closed space, a universe of self-serving rules that pretend to replace or translate those of the shapeless universe beyond.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Universe

“Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Source: Quartet

Solitude

“In Western Civilization, our elders are books.”

Gary Snyder (1930) American poet

Source: The Practice of the Wild: Essays

“I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl's kiss on your cheek.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 73, p. 230

Faith, Way, Girl, Kiss

“No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book, or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Alcohol, Music, Painting

“A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

"Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw" ["Nota sobre (hacia) Bernard Shaw"] (1951)
Other Inquisitions (1952)
Source: Ficciones
Context: A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.