
Source: The Collected Dorothy Parker
Source: The Collected Dorothy Parker
“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
“Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”
Source: Nausea, The Wall and Other Stories
“I think a good book is a good book forever.
I don't think they get less good because times change.”
Source: Nightwoods
“Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.”
Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
“All good research-whether for science or for a book-is a form of obsession.”
“I love the smell of book ink in the morning.”
“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
“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”
Source: The Books in My Life
Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
“Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read.”
Source: The Library at Night
“Did you read the book or did you just read the words in order?”
Source: Right Behind You
“I know she is coming
I know she will look
And that is the longing
And this is the book.”
Source: Book of Longing
“And each book has to receive your best effort every single time. No slacking.”
“The covers of this book are too far apart.”
“How can you not care?"
"Practice," Magnus said, looking back to his book and turning the page.”
Source: The Rise of the Hotel Dumort
“But the books brought me things. This is my point. They made me feel less alone.”
Source: My Name is Lucy Barton
“I have never been able to resist a book about books.”
Source: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
“The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”
“Only in books the flat and final happens,
Only in dreams we meet and interlock….”
“I drank coffee and read old books and waited for the year to end.”
Source: Trout Fishing in America
“Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”
Source: The Hero of Ages
“No; that doesn't interest me.'
'That's because you never read a book about it.”
Source: The Sun Also Rises
“If there are no books. There is no civilization.”
“History proves there is no better advertisement for a book than to condemn it for obscenity.”
“Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.”
Source: Tablets
“There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.”
Source: Among Others
“You can cover a great deal of country in books.”
Source: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
Source: Scandal in Spring
“Too bad you got so bogged down in books. You've got the spirit of a warrior.”
Source: The Golden Lily
Part of his public message upon arrival on his second visit to America (19 May 1932).
General sources
“Bad books engender bad habits, but bad habits engender good books.”
“Food. Drink. Sleep. Books. They are all drugs.”
Source: The Fat Woman's Joke
“Why be so bloody miserable when you can pick up a good book or watch a great television drama?”
“my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" from the book of Isaiah”
Source: Have a Little Faith: A True Story
“It is only by struggling with difficult books, books over one's head, that anyone learns to read.”
Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 315
“I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.”
“opening the book, i inhaled. the smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it.”
Source: The Thirteenth Tale