Quotes About Literature

William Shakespeare

The bookish theoric.

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me,From mine own library with volumes thatI prize above my dukedom.

The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here.

An honour! were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat

I love a ballad in print, a-life, for then we are sure they are true.

This was the noblest Roman of them all.

William Shakespeare

Here are a few of the unpleasant'st wordsThat ever blotted paper.

A rhapsody of words.

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,The Anthropophagi, and men whose headsDo grow beneath their shoulders.

Within the book and volume of my brain.

Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.

You two are book-men.

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?Hamlet: Words, words, words.

William Shakespeare

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.

His knowledge of books had in some degree diminished his knowledge of the world.

The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.

I learn more from books than from people

The crown of literature is poetry.

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.

The Steinbeck house was full of books, and as John's sister Beth recalled, "The choice was ours." Some years later Steinbeck reckoned that the books he immersed himself in as a boy were "realer than experience." He didn't remember them as books, but as "something that happened to me.