Quotes about books
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“I love to read, and I don't believe that you have to finish one book before you start another.
--Mallory Pike”

Ann M. Martin (1955) American writer of children's literature

Source: Hello, Mallory

“In my schoolboy reveries, we were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

World, Dreams

“Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964) Spanish writer

Change, Time

“I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on the covers… this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Women

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Ray Bradbury book Ray Bradbury

As quoted in "Bradbury Still Believes in Heat of ‘Fahrenheit 451’" http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930312&slug=1689996, interview by Misha Berson, in ', credited to "Ray Bradbury, quoted by Misha Berson in Seattle Times", in "Quotable Quotes", The Reader's Digest, Vol. 144, No. 861, January 1994, p. 25 http://books.google.com/books?output=html&id=ZqqUAAAAIAAJ&q=%22people+to+stop+reading%22#search_anchor), or an indirect reference to the re-quoting in Reader's Digest (such as: The Times Book of Quotations (Philip Howard, ed.), 2000, Times Books and HarperCollins, p. 93 Variant: We're not teaching kids to read and write and think. … There's no reason to burn books if you don't read them. As quoted in "At 80, Ray Bradbury Still Fighting the Future He Foresaw" http://www.raybradbury.com/articles_peoria.html, interview by Roger Moore, in The Peoria Journal Star (August 2000) Context: The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. Look at the magazines, the newspapers around us – it's all junk, all trash, tidbits of news. The average TV ad has 120 images a minute. Everything just falls off your mind. … You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

People, Reading

“Books are truer than movies.”

Adam Levine (1979) singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States

Source: The Instructions

“Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.”

Emma Donoghue (1969) Irish novelist, playwright, short-story writer and historian

Season

“Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: The Quotable Fulton Sheen: A Topical Compilation of the Wit, Wisdom, and Satire of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Life

“Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Reading, Past, Heart

“That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Namesake

Source: The Namesake

Travel

“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”

Stephen Chbosky (1970) American writer

Silence

“In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Truth

“The product of paper and printed ink, that we commonly call the book, is one of the great visible mediators between spirit and time, and, reflecting zeitgeist, lasts as long as ore and stone.”

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Time

“Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

Source: My Name is Red

“I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Knowledge

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”

Henry David Thoreau A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Chance, Reading

“Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

“If books could have more, give more, be more, show more, they would still need readers who bring to them sound and smell and light and all the rest that can’t be in books.
The book needs you.”

Gary Paulsen book The Winter Room

Source: The Winter Room

Light

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Reading

“There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.”

Irving Stone (1903–1989) American writer

Source: Clarence Darrow for the Defense

Love, Friendship, People

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Dreams, Sleep, Reading

“Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Way, Feeling, Understanding, Thinking

“Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 2, p. 26

Women, Men, Universe, Animals

“You be sure to throw the book at him, you hear me? I feel violated, Detective. Violated."
"I'll throw this table at you if you don't give us the names we're looking for.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Kingdom of the Wicked

Feeling

“A book has but one voice, but it does not instruct everyone alike.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Notebook

Drink, Water, Wine

“From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

To S J Perelman about his book Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge (1929), as quoted in LIFE (9 February 1962)

Laughter, Reading

“There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1 March 1838); published in The Letters of Margaret Fuller vol. I, p. 327, , edited by Robert N. Hudspeth (1983).
Context: There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes. And I see no divine person. I myself am more divine than any I see — I think that is enough to say about them...

Life

“Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later--no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover or how much we learn or forget--we will return.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)

World, Way, Thinking, Learning

“There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

“I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Reading

“We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

As quoted in B. F. Skinner : The Man and His Ideas (1968) by Richard Isadore Evans, p. 73.
Context: We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.

Love, Reading

“A book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Variant: Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.
Source: The Shadow of the Wind

“Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way, and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

Life, Way, Idea

“You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Reading

“In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.”

Terry Pratchett book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

Hate, Literature, Reading

“But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”

Carol Shields (1935–2003) American author

Source: The Republic of Love

Reading

“I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Dreams, Feeling

“Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Question, Learning

“You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: The Funny Thing Is...

Idea, Time

“Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.”

David Jeremiah

Source: The Prophecy Answer Book

War, People, World, Disease

“Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

Soul, Reading, Heart

“It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed', although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

“The only book that is worth writing is the one we don’t have the courage or strength to write. The book that hurts us (we who are writing), that makes us tremble, redden, bleed”

Hélène Cixous (1937) French philosopher and writer

Courage, Hurt

“Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

“Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Faith, Reading

“HOLLY: Are you suggesting I occasionally stray from the rule book?
FOALY: No. I'm suggesting you do not own a copy of the rule book, and if you do, you have certainly never opened it.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (2008)

“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

Love, People, Music, Reading

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Source: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858

“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Reading

“Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Critic as Artist

Men

“A book is not completed till it's read.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Reading

“I'm a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don't read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Study, Reading

“As for my next book, I won't write it till it has grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

“The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Nature, Joy

“…She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality, but never her soul.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Women, Soul

“Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Life, People, Reading

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

As quoted in InfoWorld https://books.google.gr/books?id=qjgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA49&dq=, Vol. 23, No. 16, 16 April 2001, p. 49. This had been attributed previously to many other sources from 1908 on, according to this analysis https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/ by Quote Investigator. Misattributed

Children, Parent, Time

“Books do not age as you and I do. They will speak still when you and I are gone, to generations we will never see. Yes, the books must survive.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Source: The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Age

“When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Heart

“There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
Someone had stolen a book.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Soul

“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a whole book — what everyone else does not say in a whole book.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Things the Germans Lack, 51
Twilight of the Idols (1888)

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

Stephen King book On Writing

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Variant: Books are a uniquely portable magic

“I would like to write a Book which would drive men mad, which would be like an open door leading them where they would never have consented to go, in short, a door that opens onto reality.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Source: Selected Writings

Men, Reality, Madness

“One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

“I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.”

Emma Thompson (1959) British actress and writer

Life, People, Thinking, Sense

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Bestselling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information

Wisdom, Nature, Learning

“When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
"When I have fears that I may cease to be" (1817)
Source: The Complete Poems

Love, World, Fear, Feeling

“It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

God, Learning

“What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.”

Louis Sachar (1954) American writer of children's books

Feeling

“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Words on being presented with a Bible, as reported in the Washington Daily Morning Chronicle (8 September 1864)
1860s

God, World, Communication

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Success

“Houses are like books: so many of them around you, yet you only look at a few and visit or reside in fewer still.”

Milorad Pavić (1929–2009) Serbian writer

Housing

“no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop your books and run like hell”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Hell, Teachers

“In each of us there is another whom we do not know.
Carl Jung

found in David Eagleman's book: Incognito”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

“The studying, the books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter, kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety percent sweat and toil, ten per cent joy.”

Siobhan Dowd book Bog Child

Source: Bog Child

Life, Kiss, Laughter, Study

“I have unclasp'd to thee the book even of my secret soul.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Source: Twelfth Night

Secret, Soul

“I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Way

“she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Love

“Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

“Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it's the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Variant: [W]hat I like best is staying home and reading. Being rich is not about how many homes you own. It’s the freedom to pick up any book you want without looking at the price and wondering whether you can afford it.
Source: Role Models

Money, Home, Freedom

“That's what this country needs -- more books!”

Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

Country

“There’s nothing as cozy as a piece of candy and a book.”

Betty MacDonald (1908–1958) writer

Source: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic

“Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.”

Ernest J. Gaines (1933–2019) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

Life, Music

“Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

People, Study, Learning

“… the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2004, Interview by Wallace Shawn, 2004 Context: You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible - not only did He order His chosen people http://www.bible.org/netbible/1sa15.htm to carry out literal genocide - I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert - not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That's the story of Noah. I mean, that's beyond genocide - you don't know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive - that's supposed to be gentle and wonderful.

“If books are not good company, where shall I find it?”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Personality, Dead

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Reading, Housing

“These weren't cheap modern books; these were books bound in leather, and not just leather, but leather from clever cows who had given their lives for literature after a happy existence in the very best pastures.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

Literature, Happiness

“First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Hell

“My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Reading, Personality

“Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Book V, Chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

Men, Learning

“Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.”

Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

Life, Game, Learning

“He made me think of all the books I hadn't read, and all the ones I'd read but hadn't fully understood.”

Tom Perrotta (1961) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: Joe College

Thinking, Reading

“Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 166 (10 September 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
Context: Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

“Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.”

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher

Idea, Perfection

Quotes about books page 3

Quotes about books
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