Quotes About Books

The only thing that I discovered very early on is that, even though we might change schools and cities and towns and states, the books in the library were the same. They had the same covers. They had the same characters. I could go and visit those people in the library as if I knew them.

I became a fanatic of the architecture of Le Corbusier and I visited almost all his buildings and read all his books. Only later on did I discover that all the things that impressed me in his books, particular his ideology, he had picked up from Auguste Perret.

I know that I am very popular in Holland, in fact I have visited Amsterdam several times to publicize my books. I have a great publisher in Holland and they have published all of my books in Dutch.

My mother says that after I first visited the home of the man I later married, she knew it was serious when I told her, 'Mum, he has more books than me!' So, books are at the very heart of my life.

On two or three book tours, I have visited bookstores in the Mall of America and signed copies of my books and introduced myself to store employees who I hope will sell them.

I found in Rick Rubin a kindred soul. When I visited his home and looked in his library, I saw he was reading the very same New Age books I had picked up the month before.

I was obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster, I would look through these books in the library and dream about visiting Loch Ness one day... That stuff was really kind of what I loved as a kid.

As a biographer, I try to uncover the adventures and personalities behind each character I research. Once my character and I have reached an understanding, then I begin the detective work reading old books, old letters, old newspapers, and visiting the places where my subject lived. Often I turn up surprises, and of course, I pass them on.

I'm not one of those professors whose office is encased floor-to-ceiling with books. By the way, I think academics do this to intimidate their visitors.

I have on my bookshelf a series of books with opposite titles: 'The Alpha Strategy' and the 'Omega Strategy'; 'Asia Rising' and 'Asia Falling'; 'Free to Choose' and 'Free to Lose'; 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' and 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.' Visitors love the collection.

I remember visits to the local libraries and getting my own library cards as things of rite-of-passage significance.

I'm more of a visual person, but I think that reading's extremely important. But I'm very easily distracted. It takes certain books to really grab you in.

I'm a visual person, so it always starts with a picture, and then I get obsessed with the idea, sometimes too much. I have these blank books in which I take notes, and I add postcards and other physical items.

I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.

My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.

They will be given as gifts; books that are especially pretty or visual will be bought as hard copies; books that are collectible will continue to be collected; people with lots of bookshelves will keep stocking them; and anyone who likes to make notes in books will keep buying books with margins to fill.

The way I create music is maybe like a painting, to compose in a more visual way. Basically it's the music that I want to hear- that's my inspiration and bottom line. I just try to get ideas from books, movies, paintings.

I really like books that you can kind of hear as much as think about, that are so graphic and visual.

I am primarily a writer of books, and I enjoy that. But I come to realize that a lot of people prefer a visual medium.

I understand the visual media very well, as I used to write comic books for Walt Disney, and I've written a graphic novel.

You put books out into the world, and people form their own visuals and images and attachments to characters; those characters become part of them, and they have their feelings about them.

For many children, the library represents their only access to books, reading, and the Internet outside of their home. If you think about how far behind a child would be without access to these fundamental tools - tools that are vital to successful employment later in life - it's a travesty.

I remember vividly what it's like to read as a 10-year-old - that passionate inhabiting of a book.

I imagine a child. That child is me. I can reconstruct and vividly remember portions of my own childhood. I can see, taste, smell, feel, and hear them. Then what I do is, not write about that kid or about his world, but start to think of a book that would have pleased him.