Quotes About Books

But books, she had found, were too powerful, and invariably misleading.

I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.

Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.

Judy Blume: Some books you never forget. Some characters become your friends for life.

As children, in our own school of life, we soak up clues about our world just as eagerly as small squirrels. Exposure to children's books provides verbal and visual material to help us along the way. So subtle and varied can the lessons be that it may take years before we use everything we absorbed.

Jack Pikulski: I learned... ...that children's books not only inform and entertain, but they make lasting impressions and add richness to our lives and the lives of those we love. While I am definitely into my mature years, I still read children's books; I always will.

But not all books must be universally approved or applauded to bring meaning; books are, ultimately, the most personal of media. They can be important to only one person or to only a few people, and yet because of that they still have tremendous influence.

Nick Clark: Books are so important in conveying messages to children. We may not fully appreciate the impact of a book until we are older, but there are things that we learn from our reading.

Books hold our culture, our past, other worlds, the antidote for sadness.

The distinction has blurred between young adult and adult books. Some of the teen books have become more sophisticated.

She could understand why some of the women inside loved those true-crime books. The ones with pictures of blank-faced killers staring out of the pages. There was something compulsive about the sadism. The sexual violence. She remembered again Jason's words, his hard laughter and his scorn at her tears. The books the women read were all about pain and humiliation.

The room wasn't a mess, but there was clutter. Last week's Observer on the arm of a chair, a couple of books on the table.

My uncle Randall always had a book in his hand. He read in the car, he read at restaurants, he read when you were talking to him. He read lots of different things, but mostly it was Louis L'Amour's westerns and contemporary thrillers.

The copycat effects of media violence, similar to those previously attributed to westerns, radio serials and comic books, are easy to exaggerate.

My mother was a reader; my father was a reader. Not anything particularly sophisticated. My mother read fat historical or romantic novels; my father liked to read Westerns, Zane Grey, that kind of stuff. Whatever they brought in, I read.

I have no personal agenda in whether or not a library keeps 'Whale Talk' or 'Athletic Shorts' or any of my books shelved.

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.

I can remember that on the shelves at home, there were these books by Thomas Wolfe. 'Look Homeward Angel' and 'Of Time and the River.' 'Of Time and the River' had just come out when I was aware of his name. My parents had a hard time convincing me that he was no kin whatsoever. My attitude was, 'Well, what's he doing on the shelf, then?'

The wheels of publishing never slow down.

I try to read for pleasure whenever I can - it's a great way just to shut it off for a while so your brain doesn't get fried.

The best students come from homes where education is revered: where there are books, and children see their parents reading them.

For people like me, books are something solid and real, whereas digital stuff is a bit more ethereal. I like the trophy on my shelf, the presence in my home. A nice book is just as valuable as a decoration as a beautiful porcelain urn - and, let's face it, a hell of a lot more useful.

An author entices the readers with their words, and it is painful for them to even lose a sentence. But films and books are two different mediums and should be dealt differently. What works in a book might not work for a film. When I saw 'Anna Karenina' on screen, I didn't like it at all, whereas 'The Godfather' was legendary.

I remember that children in my class would hate the English club, whereas I was always found in the library.