Quotes about booking
page 14

Dorothy Parker photo

“I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.”

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

Source: The Collected Dorothy Parker

Nora Roberts photo
Cornelia Funke photo
Francis Bacon photo
Victor Hugo photo

“He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.”

Variant: He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends
Source: Les Misérables

Anne Fadiman photo
Gabrielle Zevin photo
Dr. Seuss photo

“Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”

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

“There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left; he will say to himself, "now what?”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Nausea, The Wall and Other Stories

Cornelia Funke photo
Heinrich Heine photo
Megan Whalen Turner photo
Sherman Alexie photo
Umberto Eco photo

“I love the smell of book ink in the morning.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
Paulo Coelho photo
Jane Austen photo

“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

Variant: [I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.
Source: Sense and Sensibility

Henry Miller photo

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: The Books in My Life

Italo Calvino photo
Rick Riordan photo

“I'd had years of practise looking dumb when people threw out Greek names I didn't know. It's a skill of mine. Annabeth keeps telling me to read a book of Greek myths, but I don't see the need. It's easier just to have folks explain stuff.”

Variant: Cacus.” I’d had years of practice looking dumb when people threw out Greek names I didn’t know. It’s a skill of mine. Annabeth keeps telling me to read a book of Greek myths, but I don’t see the need. It’s easier just to have folks explain stuff.
Source: The Demigod Diaries

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Kate DiCamillo photo
Julian Barnes photo
Khaled Hosseini photo

“Sad stories make good books”

Source: The Kite Runner

Stephen Chbosky photo
Umberto Eco photo

“We live for books.”

Benno of Uppsala
The Name of the Rose (1980)

Cornelia Funke photo
Ann Brashares photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Cornelia Funke photo

“Did you read the book or did you just read the words in order?”

Gail Giles (1955) American writer

Source: Right Behind You

Leonard Cohen photo
Alain de Botton photo
Edna O'Brien photo
Ambrose Bierce photo

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
Cassandra Clare photo

“How can you not care?"
"Practice," Magnus said, looking back to his book and turning the page.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Rise of the Hotel Dumort

Elizabeth Strout photo

“But the books brought me things. This is my point. They made me feel less alone.”

Elizabeth Strout (1956) American writer

Source: My Name is Lucy Barton

Amy Lowell photo
Anne Fadiman photo

“I have never been able to resist a book about books.”

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

Source: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Walt Whitman photo

“The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist
Philip Larkin photo
Rick Riordan photo
Thom Yorke photo
Richard Brautigan photo
Brandon Sanderson photo

“Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

Harper Lee photo
Susanna Clarke photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Holbrook Jackson photo
Amos Bronson Alcott photo

“Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.”

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American teacher and writer

Source: Tablets

Lois Lowry photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Stephen Chbosky photo
Jo Walton photo
Andrew Lang photo

“You can cover a great deal of country in books.”

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) Scots poet, novelist and literary critic
Walter Benjamin photo

“Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”

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

Source: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

William Ewart Gladstone photo
Marilynne Robinson photo
Laura Lippman photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Stephen King photo
Barbara Kingsolver photo
Paul Sweeney photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Nick Hornby photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Roald Dahl photo
Richelle Mead photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
Meher Baba photo

“The book that I shall make people read is the book of the heart, which holds the key to the mystery of life.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

Part of his public message upon arrival on his second visit to America (19 May 1932).
General sources

Fay Weldon photo

“Food. Drink. Sleep. Books. They are all drugs.”

Fay Weldon (1931) English author, essayist and playwright

Source: The Fat Woman's Joke

Jane Hamilton photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Michael Dobbs photo
Mitch Albom photo

“my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" from the book of Isaiah”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: A True Story

Mortimer J. Adler photo

“It is only by struggling with difficult books, books over one's head, that anyone learns to read.”

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

Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 315

Edna St. Vincent Millay photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Steven Wright photo
Agatha Christie photo