Quotes About Books

Good books and good friends were critical in Lewis's conversion.

They brought home to me the central reason why books have meant so much to me. It is not because of my pleasure in the art of writing, though that has been very great. It is because they have taken me so far beyond the narrow limits of my own experience and have so greatly enlarged my sense of the complexity of life: of its consuming darkness, and also – thank God – of the light which continues to struggle through.

Scholarship was a hidey hole, a place where I could escape negative feelings. But as I learned more about the world, I realized that a life buried in books quite suited me.

When I get a little money I buy books," he confessed to a friend. "If any is left, I buy food and clothes."13

All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes -- characters even -- caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.

What better way to get to know someone than through her choice and treatment of books?

When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.

Book lover n. 1. A person devoted to reading 2. One who would rather stay inside and read than go outside and play. 3. Someone who gets lost in a story and loves to dream with open eyes. Beware: never disturb a book lover when he/she is reading. Results can be fatal.

J'ai reconnu très précisément ce que j'ai vécu à ce moment-là en lisant les livres qu'Annie Ernaux a consacrés à ses parents et à la « distance de classe » qui la séparait d'eux.

There is something very intimate and personal about one's books. They reveal so much of one's private soul.

Dusty books are my one real passion. New books are like young girls--fit for nothing. A secondhand book is like a person who has traveled; it is only when a book has been handled by several persons and has become dirty that it's fit for contemplation.

Gleda biblioteku: dva zida puna knjiga do tavanice - to je sav njegov svet. Iz njega ga niko ne ugrožava i ne ponižava. Tu bira sabesednike. Spusti pogled na radni sto i pisa?u mašinu: taj ružni predmet organ je njegovog tela; on ga na ovom svetu jedino poznaje, njemu je skoro sve rekao što je moglo da stane u re?, on je sve zapamtio.

Zaboravilo se: sve su velike misli ro?ene u tišini, najbolje su knjige napisane u ?utanju.

When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.

help us give books to kids who need them. Who crave them. And whose lives will be forever changed by them.

This is terrific. What a gorgeous kitchen. You've decorated it so beautifully. Now you're going to have to clear all the counters. Vases. Books. Knickknacks. Get rid of all that stuff. I mean, it is just beautiful. Beautiful. I love what you've done with this house. Make sure you put it all away." ~Real estate agent (p.76)

Inconveniently, books are all the pages in them, not just the ones you choose to read.

There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference books. They are like understanding friends-always ready to meet your mood, always ready to change the subject when you have had enough of this or that.

An encyclopedia is a book or set of books filled with facts from A to Z. So was Encyclopedia's head. He had read more books than just about anyone in Idaville, and he never forgot what he read.

A room without books is like a life without meaning.

Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person's bookcase and their grocery cart, she'd pretty much know who they were.

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

To be able to talk to your heart's content about a book you like with someone who feels the same way about it is one of the greatest joys that life can offer.

Books, the books that I loved above all else to spend my time with, were the great tools for understanding one's life and the lives of other people.