Books
Quotes - Even bad books are books and therefore sacred
“My
daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that
their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's
rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those
children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood.
By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on
the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I
know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP
OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.”
―
Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
“In
the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were
looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the
shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which are frowning at
you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you...And thus you pass the
outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of Books
That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But
Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and
move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You
Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're
Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback, Books You Can
Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read
Them, Too. ”
―
Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
“When
you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.”
―
Elizabeth Kostovia, The Historian
“One
of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic
pictures.”
―
George W. Bush
“I
have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world
we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of
the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they
write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the
beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
― W.
Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
“Sometimes
I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter
and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way,
characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love
stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books
become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life.”
―
Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything
“Growing
up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about
what people did, about how to behave. They were my teachers and my advisers.”
―
Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
“Even
bad books are books and therefore sacred.”
―
Günter Grass, The Tin Drum
“There
are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw
the line somewhere.”
―
Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale
“She
remembered one of her boy-friends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read
in a year. "A few hundred," she said.
"How
do you have the time?" he asked, gobsmacked.
She
narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of
her. Because I don't spend hours flipping through cable complaining there's
nothing on? Because my entire Sunday is not eaten up with pre-game, in-game,
and post-game talking heads? Because I do not spend every night drinking
overpriced beer and engaging in dick-swinging contests with the other
financirati? Because when I am waiting in line, at the gym, on the train,
eating lunch, I am not complaining about the wait/staring into space/admiring
myself in reflective surfaces? I am reading!
"I
don't know," she said, shrugging.”
―
Eleanor Brown, The Weird Sisters
“When
you look at what C.S. Lewis is saying, his message is so anti-life, so cruel,
so unjust. The view that the Narnia books have for the material world is one of
almost undisguised contempt. At one point, the old professor says, ‘It’s all in
Plato’ — meaning that the physical world we see around us is the crude, shabby,
imperfect, second-rate copy of something much better. I want to emphasize the
simple physical truth of things, the absolute primacy of the material life,
rather than the spiritual or the afterlife.
[The
New York Times interview, 2000]”
―
Philip Pullman
“A
book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept
in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for
you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But
when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.”
―
Henry Miller, The Books in My Life
