Books Quotes
968 quotes
"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
"So many books, so little time."
"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."
"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
"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 the book."
"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them."
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."
"If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all."
"There is no friend as loyal as a book."
"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."
"Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back."
"′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read."
"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."
"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."
"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."
"Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you'll die of a misprint."
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
"... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge."
"Books are a uniquely portable magic."
"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. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited."
"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."
"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading."
"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."
"Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry."
"Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live."
"In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them."
"Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly."
"Sleep is good, he said, and books are better."
"You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up."
"Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself."
"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"
"There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it."
"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."
"Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book."
"Think before you speak. Read before you think."
"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."
"Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head."
"Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life."
"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."
"In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you."
"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond."
"We live for books."
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive."
"Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you."
"Reader's Bill of Rights1. The right to not read 2. The right to skip pages 3. The right to not finish 4. The right to reread 5. The right to read anything 6. The right to escapism 7. The right to read anywhere 8. The right to browse 9. The right to read out loud 10. The right to not defend your tastes"
"Books are the mirrors of the soul."
"Reading one book is like eating one potato chip."
Showing 50 of 968 quotes