BOOK QUOTES VIII

quotations about books


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A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G. K. CHESTERTON
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Heretics


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You know, not every good book needs to be a movie, or a television series, or a video game. There's great work in those mediums, of course, but sometimes a book should remain a book. I still believe nothing tells a story with the richness and complexity of a good novel. When people say they think a book would make a good movie, they say this sometimes because, if it worked, they already saw all the images in the movie theatre that is in their brains. And sometimes that is the way it should stay.

CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON

"Carlos Ruiz Zafon's love letter to literature", New Zealand Listener, Mar. 14, 2013


For out of old fields, as men saith,
Cometh all this new corn from year to year;
And out of old books, in good faith,
Cometh all this new science that men learn.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

"Parliament of Foules"


Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness.

CHARLES LAMB

"On Books and Reading", The Last Essays of Elia


There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

CHARLES DICKENS

Oliver Twist


If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

HARUKI MURAKAMI

Norwegian Wood


It is only a novel ... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

JANE AUSTEN

Northanger Abbey


The world has been printing books for 450 years, and yet gunpowder still has a wider circulation. Never mind! Printer's ink is the greater explosive: it will win.

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

The Haunted Bookshop


Are not good books honey-comb from the bee-hives of industry, handed down to us to sweeten our lives and help us aim to higher attainments of happiness? Are not good books white-winged messengers of love and good cheer, coming out of the past to cheer and strengthen us for the duties and responsibilities of life? Are not good books the golden settings of gems of truth and diamonds of knowledge prepared for our diadems of rejoicing and crowns of victory? Are not good books so many angel gifts sent to sweeten the bitterness of human life?

NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY

Helps to Happiness


For books are more than books, they are the life
The very heart and core of ages past,
The reason why men lived and worked and died,
The essence and quintessence of their lives.

AMY LOWELL

"The Boston Athenæum", A Dome of Many-coloured Glass


So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.

ROALD DAHL

The Telegraph, Sep. 13, 2011


The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger (tutor to Nero) complained that his peers were wasting time and money accumulating too many books, admonishing that "the abundance of books is a distraction." Instead, Seneca recommended focusing on a limited number of good books, to be read thoroughly and repeatedly.

DANIEL J. LEVITIN

The Organized Mind


A book is a garden; a book is an orchard; a book is a storehouse; a book is a party. It is company by the way; it is a counselor; it is a multitude of counselors.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest.

ROMAIN ROLLAND

Journey Within


I know not how it is, but during a voyage I collect books as a ship does barnacles.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

letter to Charles Sumner, September 17, 1842


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.

JOSEPH ADDISON

The Spectator, Sep. 10, 1711


The prosperity of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and works, before neglected, emerge into renown.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES

The Principles of Success in Literature


The history of books shows the humblest origin of some of the most valued, wrought as these were out of obscure materials by persons whose names thereafter became illustrious. The thumbed volumes, now so precious to thousands, were compiled from personal experiences and owe their interest to touches of inspiration of which the writer was less author than amanuensis, himself the voiced word of life for all times.

AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT

Table Talk


A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.

DANIEL HANDLER (as Lemony Snicket)

Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid


Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read that book.

JOHN GREEN

The Fault in Our Stars