BOOK QUOTES III

quotations about books

Book quote

The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author ...

DANIEL HANDLER (as Lemony Snicket)

The Penultimate Peril


We go to a book as Narcissus went to the fountain, see ourselves therein, and are enamored.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


A good book, in the language of the booksellers, is a saleable one; in the language of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructful one.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


Books are embalmed minds. They make the great of other days our present teachers.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Books are nothing but repositories for those lies the author wants his reader to believe.

GLEN COOK

Water Sleeps


I think a book that is over 400 pages should be split in two. I don't know that there's anything that interesting that can go on for 700 pages. I think that is a little bit indulgent.

CHRIS ABANI

The Boston Globe, Mar. 22, 2014


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

Selected Writings


It is so very easy and so very pleasant, too, to read only books which lead to nothing, light and interesting books, and the more the better, that it is almost as difficult to wean ourselves from it as from the habit of chewing tobacco to excess, or of smoking the whole time, or of depending for stimulus upon tea or coffee or spirits.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

American Library Journal, 1876


One cannot celebrate books sufficiently. After saying his best, still something better remains to be spoken in their praise. As with friends, one finds new beauties at every interview, and would stay long in the presence of those choice companions. As with friends, he may dispense with a wide acquaintance. Few and choice. The richest minds need not large libraries.

AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT

Table Talk


When I was very little, say five or six, I became aware of the fact that people wrote books. Before that, I thought that God wrote books. I thought a book was a manifestation of nature, like a tree. When my mother explained it, I kept after her: What are you saying? What do you mean? I couldn't believe it. It was astonishing. It was like--here's the man who makes all the trees. Then I wanted to be a writer, because, I suppose, it seemed the closest thing to being God.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

interview, The Paris Review, summer 1993


In perusing the writings of sensible men, we have frequent opportunities of examining our own hearts, and by that means, of attaining a more certain knowledge of ourselves.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine


It's up to the parents to not only allow but encourage reading fun books. People tend to push books that are good for you, like broccoli instead of ice cream. But if you let them read Spider-Man--I sure did--they are going to move on to Ray Bradbury and Stephen King.

NORA ROBERTS

Time Magazine, Nov. 29, 2007


My last refuge, my books: simple pleasures, like finding wild onions by the side of the road, or requited love.

TRACY LETTS

August: Osage Country


Of books in our time the variety is so voluminous, and they follow so fast from the press, that one must be a swift reader to acquaint himself even with their titles, and wise to discern what are worth reading.

AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT

Table Talk


What I look for most in the books I read is a sense of consciousness. It's so I know that I've lived. At the end, I can say, "Yes, I have been here--I was here, and I was paying attention."

LILI TAYLOR

O Magazine, Aug. 2006


Who collects them or preserves them--the Fantastic Books? No one, I think. They are not catalogued under a separate Heading. They puzzle the writers of Indices; they bewilder Librarians. They must be grouted out of the mass of rubbish as Pigs in the Perigord grout out truffles. There is no other way.

HILAIRE BELLOC

On Everything


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

DAVID BALDACCI

The Camel Club


Book publishing would be so much easier without the authors.

DAN BROWN

The Lost Symbol


Books are the mirrors of the soul.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

Between the Acts


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 ZAFON

The Shadow of the Wind