Quotes About Books

The man who is fond of books is usually a man of lofty thought, and of elevated opinions.

His bedroom was a reflection of Bryant's mind, its untidy shelves filled with games and puzzles stacked in ancient boxes, statues and mementoes competing for space with books on every subject imaginable, from Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology to Illustrated British Ballads and A History of Indian Philosophy. "What are you reading at the moment?' asked May. "Batman," said Bryant. "The drawings are terribly good.

Second hand bookshops are best visited alone and in the rain.

Bookshelves of summer houses are filled with dishy nonsense. They indicate how a person understands time is meant to be wasted.

Or perhaps it was the crying woman's mention of the unread library books, because truly there was nothing sadder, except a gift that a person has hand made for you, a scarf or a poncho, that, try as you might, you cannot ever see your way into wearing. This is when the cold indifference of the world envelops you, and makes you feel invigorated by emotion but also acutely alone.

We -- editors, writers, teachers, publishers -- need to do whatever we can to enliven readers, to help create communities for them if we want to continue to have readers at all. Our independent bookstores are the front lines, and many booksellers are fighting the good fight. Here, books stimulate conversation. Conversation stimulates a sense of community. Listening happens. Thinking. The exchange of thoughts.

On the day of the party I walked down to Covent Garden at lunchtime to buy a dress, and on my way to Boules I thought I would just stop off for a moment at Books etc.

From every book invisible threads reach out to other books; and as the mind comes to use and control those threads the whole panorama of the world's life, past and present, becomes constantly more varied and interesting, while at the same time the mind's own powers of reflection and judgment are exercised and strengthened.

I always market research my books before I hand them in by showing them to five or six close friends who I trust to be honest with me, so they are very heavily re-written already.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.

From your parents, you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot in front of the other. But when books are opened, you discover that you have wings.

I genitori ti insegnano ad amare, ridere e correre. Ma solo entrando in contatto con i libri, si scopre di avere le ali.

From your parents you learn love & laughter & how to put one foot in front of the other. But when books are opened, you discover you have wings.

The good thing about books is that they remain themselves. What happens in their pages stays there. Harriet does not like the idea of the story bleeding through into real life. She trusts a story, and doesn't trust real life. But what makes her trust a story is the knowledge that it will stay where it is, that she can visit it but that there is no chance it will visit her.

Literature is my Utopia

children treasure the hope that they might be like the children in books: secretly magical, part of some deeper, mysterious world that makes them something out of the ordinary.

An obscure shame grips me. I had a fixed idea of what a goshawk was, just as those Victorian falconers had, and it was not big enough to hold what goshawks are. No one had ever told me goshawks played. It was not in the books. I had not imagined it was possible. I wondered if it was because no one had ever played with them. The thought made me terribly sad.

A library at night is full of sounds: The unread books can't stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious. But the sound I heard wasn't the sound of a book.

Daphne came in with her arms full of books, and her eyes blazing like two poisoned moons. "How'd you like the mess St. John?

Books. I am attracted and repelled; books are conversations that are not addressed to me and I want to sneak up and listen but I also want to be invited in. If I was invited in the conversation would not be what it was.

Yes, but that's personal preference and our desire to honor what's ours, Day," Hilde said. "I know," said Day. "And I do. But I want to read everything. When it comes to books and who can put things in them and get things out of them, it's all ours. And all theirs too. So we go in, see what books they have, take a few and replace them with a few of ours." "No

There are real books all around the house, everywhere. She could pick one up and in mere seconds she could be involved in something that makes her laugh and feel nervous and hot and cold and forgive the world its absurdity.

Why should I run all the way down to 17th St. to buy dirty, badly made books whenI can buy clean, beautiful ones from you without leaving the typewriter? From whereI sit,London's a lot closer than 17th Street.

I'm always ashamed when I discover how well-read other people are and how ignorant I am in comparison. If you saw the long list of famous books and authors I've never read you wouldn't believe it. My problem is that while other people are reading fifty books I'm reading one book fifty times. I only stop when at the bottom of the page 20, say, I realize I can recite page 21 and 22 from memory. Then I put the book away for a few years.