Quotes About Books

The to-read pile is more than just a physical stack of books: it's a tower of ambitions failed, hopes unrealised, good intentions unfulfilled. Worse still, it's a cold hard reminder of mortality. Already, I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime. How will this pile of books taunt me when I'm 64?

It was soon painfully clear that when he looked at me what he mainly saw was a cute animal, clownish and a little stupid, something like a very small dog with buckteeth. He had no inkling of my true character, that I was in fact grossly cynical, moderately vicious, and a melancholy genius, or that I had read more books than he had.

Amigo mío, dado el abismo que separa todas tus experiencias de todas las mías, lo más cerca que te puedo situar de ese sabor tan único es decirte que los libros, así, por término medio, saben a lo mismo que huele el café

Questo luogo caldo e umido, che sapeva di muffa, dove aveva trovato rifugio, era un mausoleo di libri, un tesoro dimenticato, un cimitero di tutte le pagine non lette e illeggibili.

At 12, still digesting every non-religious book he could get his hands on, he memorized a Latin vocabulary book.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." — Mark Twain Beh-Rang was a critic of "an educational system that does not offer anything other than limited reading and writing." Beh-Rang

You've got all these books on self help, getting to know yourself, doing the right thing, eating the so-called right foods, even down to what books you have on your shelves. People are encouraged to look to themselves first as opposed to being a part of society.

Books are like imprisoned souls until someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

The more freely a librarian mingles with readers, and the greater the amount of assistance he renders them, the more intense does the conviction of citizens become, that the library is a useful institution, and the more willing do they grow to grant money in larger and larger sums to be used in buying books and employing additional assistants.

Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning.

When I was packing those, I caught myself taking all the important, profound, and indispensable titles I could – nearly filled the box. But one of the more eccentric librarians at the internment compound I'd gotten permission to riffle had put up a whole shelf full of cubes of women writers or texts about women. She was convinced nobody could be truly educated unless they'd read them – though nobody I ever met had, except her, maybe. […]

Books kept connecting with books. That is what made them live…

Thomas B. Costain, Herman Wouk, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Kenneth Roberts, Edna Ferber, Sholem Asch, Ben Ames Williams, Frederic Wakeman, Frances Parkinson Keyes, Irwin Shaw, Budd Schulberg, Hamilton Basso, and, of course, Samuel Shellabarger.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

The experience to be gathered from books, Though often valuable, is but of the nature of learning Whereas the experience gained from actual life, Is of the nature of wisdom And a small store of the latter Is worth vastly more than a stock of the former.

What kind of books do you want?' the librarian enquired. 'Local history,' I said. She shook her head and muttered darkly, 'They'll be scattered.' I wasn't sure what that meant. It's the sort of thing people say at crematoriums, not libraries. She kept staring at me, so I left without any books.

I'm the only girl on The Food Network who grills - I have two bestselling grilling books. I try to really focus on what men and women can do outside together out on the grill. I think it's really fun to have men and women out there together, having fun, working and enjoying themselves.

while the world became the something else of dreams, of books, of Kate.

There are a lot of snobs out there who disregard these books (romance novels), but they fulfil a need. I am happy and fulfilled in what I am doing and readers love them. And why not? They are harmless and they are fun.

People had let us down. People had broken our hearts. We liked books and animals and messy rooms full of things that weren't people.

I had thousands of books in my house and never found anything I wanted to read. I would stare at the shelves of books like a hungry person staring into an open refrigerator and wait for something to speak to me. But nothing ever spoke.

Like most book people, there was a shadow in his face, a hollow echo in his laugh, that let you know he'd rather be around books than people. Who could blame him? It was why so many of us were in this business. People had let us down. People had broken our hearts. We liked books and animals and messy rooms full of things that weren't people.

It was this idea that books contained secrets. Important information that would be lost if someone didn't preserve it. And then I studied history and got really into that and I realized that was true not just about sex but lots of things. If someone doesn't care about books, shit gets lost. And then I became a librarian. And archivist.

Dije que los libros transtornan, especialmente a las mujeres, y conté de la madre de Susana que leyó unas cuantas páginas en su vida pero eso bastó para que lo abandonara todo, de Susana que siempre soñó con escribir aunque fuera sólo uno, de mi madre que me crió obedeciendo al pie de la letra las instrucciones de varios, de mí que partí a un país lejano y desconocido en busca de lo que ellos ofrecen y de mi hija que ni los mira.