Quotes About Books

Inside, it was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.

It's only in books people carry revolvers around as a matter of course.

Present­ly, when the strain re­laxed, Blore said: 'There are habits and habits! Mr. Lom­bard takes a re­volver to out-?of-?the-way places, right enough, and a primus and a sleep­ing-?bag and a sup­ply of bug pow­der, no doubt! But habit wouldn't make him bring the whole out­fit down here? It's on­ly in books peo­ple car­ry re­volvers around as a matter of course.' Dr. Arm­strong shook his head per­plexed­ly.

But seriously Poirot, what a hobby! Compare that to--" his voice sank to an appreciative purr--"an easy chair in front of a wood fire in a long low room lined with books--must be a long room--not a square one. Books all round one. A glass of port--and a book open in your hand. Time rolls back as you read.

His poems have no capital letters in them, which is, I believe, the essence of modernity. His books are about unpleasant people leading lives of surpassing dullness.

Oh, fancy! All these. I really have forgotten a lot of these. Oh, here's The Amulet and here's The Psamayad. Here's The New Treasure Seekers. Oh, I love all those. No, don't put them in shelves yet, Albert. I think I'll have to read them first.

If anyone is really determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it!

Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people's books, one's own books - it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction.

And finally Nell: British, cool, eschewing the books and the expert advice. So trust-your-instincts. So I-really-shouldn't. (I really shouldn't have that chocolate-chip muffin. Those chips. That third gin and tonic.) But there was something else about Nell, something below the salty exterior I spotted from day one: she, like me, was a woman with a secret.

Attention all kitchen utensils, unfinished books, "useless childhood artifacts," and general household objects: take heed. Colette Yates is nesting. None of you are safe.

You'll never be alone if you've got a book.

It began to falter not when the book publishers who loved books gave way to those who preferred profits to reading. It happened when publishers and editors cut back on their drinking. If there is one national flower in book publishing, it is the martini.

I get sad every time I hear a person say "I don't read." It's like saying "I don't learn," or "I don't laugh," or "I don't live.

I had a friend once who looked at his library and discovered that even if he completely stopped filmmaking (he was a filmmaker too) and just decided to read the books he had in his library, it would take him until he was 100 years old. He was a little bit panicked. But he was courageous. He went out of his house. He went to the bookstore. And he bought ten books.

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.

The days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action. Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already. You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated. A book, as it were, closes the book.

she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.

To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.

Dirty Freds... I love this filthy old place. I love the dust and the dirt, the crappy old books and the objects of art.

Scientific journals must remain the preserve of articles capable of affecting the consensus of the scientific public. Books are the place for opinions, speculations, and fanciful accounts of ricocheting planets.

So the books are waiting. Of this you may be confident: they'll be ready when the whim strikes you.

If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books.