quotations about books
The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember of them, but from their suggestiveness. A good book often serves as a match to light the dormant power within us.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
Architects of Fate
Parents should leave books lying around marked "forbidden" if they want their children to read.
DORIS LESSING
The Times, Nov. 23, 2003
Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not.
CHINA MIÉVILLE
The City and the City
Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason--they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
For out of old fields, as men saith,
Cometh all this new corn from year to year;
And out of old books, in good faith,
Cometh all this new science that men learn.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
"Parliament of Foules"
I want to do something splendid ... something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead ... I think I shall write books.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
For every good book is worth the reader's while when there is a real communion of the spirit, and this is possible only when he feels he is being taken into the author's confidence and the author is willing to reveal to him the innermost searchings of his heart and talk, as it were, in an unbuttoned mood, collar and tie loose, as by a friend's fireside.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter
For books are more than books, they are the life
The very heart and core of ages past,
The reason why men lived and worked and died,
The essence and quintessence of their lives.
AMY LOWELL
"The Boston Athenæum", A Dome of Many-coloured Glass
The prosperity of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and works, before neglected, emerge into renown.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
The Principles of Success in Literature
The history of books shows the humblest origin of some of the most valued, wrought as these were out of obscure materials by persons whose names thereafter became illustrious. The thumbed volumes, now so precious to thousands, were compiled from personal experiences and owe their interest to touches of inspiration of which the writer was less author than amanuensis, himself the voiced word of life for all times.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"A Midsummer Night's Dream," , On Lying in Bed and Other Essays
An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only.
C. S. LEWIS
"On Stories", Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Norwegian Wood
It is only a novel ... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.
JANE AUSTEN
Northanger Abbey
You know, not every good book needs to be a movie, or a television series, or a video game. There's great work in those mediums, of course, but sometimes a book should remain a book. I still believe nothing tells a story with the richness and complexity of a good novel. When people say they think a book would make a good movie, they say this sometimes because, if it worked, they already saw all the images in the movie theatre that is in their brains. And sometimes that is the way it should stay.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"Carlos Ruiz Zafon's love letter to literature", New Zealand Listener, Mar. 14, 2013
Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens.
NICHOLSON BAKER
attributed, New York Times Book Review, 1994
Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness.
CHARLES LAMB
"On Books and Reading", The Last Essays of Elia
There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
CHARLES DICKENS
Oliver Twist
A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.
DANIEL HANDLER (as Lemony Snicket)
Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
Are not good books honey-comb from the bee-hives of industry, handed down to us to sweeten our lives and help us aim to higher attainments of happiness? Are not good books white-winged messengers of love and good cheer, coming out of the past to cheer and strengthen us for the duties and responsibilities of life? Are not good books the golden settings of gems of truth and diamonds of knowledge prepared for our diadems of rejoicing and crowns of victory? Are not good books so many angel gifts sent to sweeten the bitterness of human life?
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness