Quotes about books
page 19

“I often feel sorry for people who don't read good books; they are missing a chance to lead an extra life.”

Scott Corbett (1913–2006) American children's writer

Life, People, Feeling, Chance

“I'll make you mine, lovers said in old books. They never said, I'll make you me.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Lovers

“A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.”

Jane Yolen (1939) American speculative fiction and children's writer

Source: Girl in a Cage

“A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.”

Charles Lamb book Essays of Elia

Source: Essays of Elia

Dogs, Reading, Tea

“Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined?”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Imagination, Reading

“On Friday night, I was reading my new book, but my brain got tired, so I decided to watch some television instead.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Reading, Night

“It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Art of Travel

Love, Sadness

“Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Waiting

“a good book
can make an almost
impossible
existence,
liveable

( from 'the luck of the word' )”

Charles Bukowski book Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

“Come to the book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it and draw your own map.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

Drawing

“Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wants to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.”

E.M. Forster book Aspects of the Novel

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 11
Source: Aspects of the Novel

Time, Reading

“I go to books and to nature as the bee goes to a flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Source: The Summit of the Years

Flowers, Nature, Bee

“In a weak moment, I have written a book.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

“She is a real bookworm. I think she lives on print. Her whole house is full of books - looks as if she likes them better than human company.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Thinking, Housing

“Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: The Infernal Devices, Clockwork Princess (2013), p. 539, spoken by Will
reference to quote from Clockwork Angel
Context: I recall what you said to me once, that words have the power to change us. Your words have changed me, Tess; they have made me a better man than I would have been otherwise. Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.

Life, Reading

“buying books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Time, Reading

“Reading those books is all he does these days. I think he’s even read some of them. What kind of disturbed individual would read the same book twice, I ask you?”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Last Stand of Dead Men

Thinking, Reading

“Choosing a new book was like looking for treasure.”

Kit Pearson Awake and Dreaming

Source: Awake and Dreaming

“Books may look like nothing more than words on a page, but they are actually an infinitely complex imaginotransference technology that translates odd, inky squiggles into pictures inside your head.”

Jasper Fforde book The Well of Lost Plots

Source: The Well of Lost Plots

“I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

World, History, Change

“I had to read Wuthering Heights for English and I never enjoyed a book in all my life as much as that one.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Source: Songs My Mother Taught Me

Life, Reading

“I'm going to be dead before I read the books I'm going to read.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

Reading, Dead

“Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.”

Charlaine Harris (1951) American writer

“Be awesome! Be a book nut!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

“And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love the way we reread a book or resee a film.”

Milan Kundera book Ignorance

Source: Ignorance

Love, Way, Time, Past

“And books which told me everything about the wasp, except why.”

Dylan Thomas book A Child's Christmas in Wales

Source: A Child's Christmas in Wales

“Nay, it's not the Devil been leading her astray. It's books! That girl has been nothing but trouble ever since she learned how to read.”

Anya Seton book The Winthrop Woman

Source: The Winthrop Woman

Girl, Learning, Reading

“I dreamt a limitless book,
A book unbound,
Its leaves scattered in fantastic abundance
On every line there was a new horizon drawn,
New heavens supposed;
New states, new souls.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Soul

“But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life.”

Ron Rash (1953) American poet, short story writer and novelist

Source: One Foot in Eden

Life, History, Reading

“I do not know a better cure for mental illness than a book.”

Irving Stone book Lust for Life

Source: Lust for Life

“Of all the needs a book has, the chief need is that it be readable.”

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) English novelist (1815-1882)

Source: An Autobiography (1883), Ch. 19

“I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Attributed
Source: Les Essais

Help

“She would bring you some great book because she was a book matchmaker, because she loved books the way other girls loved clothes.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Story of Us

Love, Way, Girl, Clothes

“I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.”

Twyla Tharp (1941) American choreographer

Source: The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

People, Reading, Dependency

“Unpacking books is a revelatory activity.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

“It's a good idea to have your own books with you in a strange place”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Idea

“God, he thought, her eyes are so bright, flashing, deep, full of promise, all those things eyes are in books but never are in life, and she was his.”

John Crowley book Little, Big

Source: Little, Big

Life, God

“To get along with God,
Consider the consequences of your behavior.
Earthseed: The Books of the Living”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

God, Behavior

“One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.”

Frank Herbert book Children of Dune

Source: Children of Dune

Learning

“When you read you can have every adventure. In the pages of a book you can be anyone you ever dreamed of being… They can never tell you you're too young to slay the dragon -- because it all happens right here, where it's safe.”

Janette Oke (1935) Canadian writer

Source: Love Comes Softly

Dreams, Reading

“Books mean all possibilities. They mean moving out of yourself, losing yourself, dying of thirst and living to your full. They mean everything.”

Ali Smith (1962) Scottish writer

“I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker

Home, History

“This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty… what you will.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter One
Context: This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will.

Love, God, Beauty, Art

“The truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.”

Gabriel Zaid (1934) Mexican writer

Source: So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance

“You may not agree, you may not care, but
if you are holding this book you should know that of all the sights I love in this world — and there are plenty — very near the top of the list is this one: dogs without leashes.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Dog Songs

Love, World, Dogs

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“I do care about real life. It's just not as interesting as what's in my books.”

Christina Dodd (1957) American writer

Source: Storm of Shadows

Life

“i really like reading books”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Reading

“People should be interested in books, not their authors.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

People

“We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

As quoted in Michel Foucault (1991) by Didier Eribon, as translated by Betsy Wind, Harvard University Press, p. 282
Context: There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas (and because it constantly produces them) that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.

Idea, Birth

“Books are cool, but knowledge without mileage doesn't mean anything to me.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Knowledge

“I'm guessing whatever 'ways' you have in mind aren't Jill-appropriate either."
"Put your books away and I'll show you.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

Way

“Life is not meant to be an open-book test.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Everlasting

Life

“I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Women, People, Imagination

“Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

“It was amazing how many books one could fit into a room, assuming one didn't want to move around very much.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

“We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us.”

Annie Barrows book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Source: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Parting

“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. is soon forgotten, butlasts forever.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

Silence, Time

“Perhaps they were right putting love into books. Perhaps it could not live anywhere else.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Love

“For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone.”

Jonathan Ames (1964) American novelist, memoirist

Way, Feeling

“I understood we used to be close. But they were like books i'd read two summer ago; I knew I'd liked them, but I couldn't tell you now what they'd been about.”

Sara Shepard The Lying Game

Source: The Lying Game

Reading, Summer

“Sleep with Seth Mortensen? Good grief. It was the most preposterous thing I'd ever heard. It was appalling. If I absorbed his life force, there was no telling how long it'd be until his next book came out.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

Life, Sleep

“I got a dog-training book. It says Grendel needs mental stimulation, so I tried to train him, but I think he must be retarded.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Dogs, Thinking, Training

“It was like meeting someone out of your dreams, or fantasies, or a beloved character from a favorite book.”

James Patterson book Sundays at Tiffany's

Source: Sundays at Tiffany's

Dreams

“if a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Reading

“Do you fall in love often?"

Yes often. With a view, with a book, with a dog, a cat, with numbers, with friends, with complete strangers, with nothing at all.”

Jeanette Winterson book Gut Symmetries

Source: Gut Symmetries

Love, Dogs, Cats

“I took to the Bodleian library as to a lover and… would sit long hours in Bodley's arms to emerge, blinking and dazed with the smell and feel of all those books.”

Laurie R. King book The Beekeeper's Apprentice

Source: The Beekeeper's Apprentice

Feeling, Lovers

“All books are merely delayed dust.”

George Elliott Clarke (1960) Canadian writer

“When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Pleasure

“A good book should leave you…. slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.”

William Styron (1925–2006) American novelist and essayist

Interview in Writers at Work, First Series (1958), edited by George Plimpton
Variant: A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.
Source: Conversations with William Styron

Reading

“O, there is lovely to feel a book, a good book, firm in the hand, for its fatness holds rich promise, and you are hot inside to think of good hours to come.”

Richard Llewellyn book How Green Was My Valley

Source: How Green Was My Valley

Love, Feeling, Thinking