Books
Quotes - His habit of reading isolated him
“There
is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself.”
―
Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
“What
kind of life can you have in a house without books?”
―
Sherman Alexie, Flight
“I
can promise you books and conversation and all my heart.”
―
Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
“A
word to the unwise.
Torch
every book.
Char
every page.
Burn
every word to ash.
Ideas
are incombustible.
And
therein lies your real fear.”
―
Ellen Hopkins
“Books
- the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity.”
―
George Steiner
“As
for fairy tales, he understood that they were reflections of the people who had
spun them, and were flecked with little truths - intrusions of reality into
fantasy, like toast crumbs on a wizard's beard.”
―
Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer
“His
habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in
company for some time he grew tired and restless; he was vain of the wider
knowledge he had acquired from the perusal of so many books, his mind was
alert, and he had not the skill to hide his contempt for his companions'
stupidity. They complained that he was conceited; and, since he excelled only
in matters which to them were unimportant, they asked satirically what he had
to be conceited about. He was developing a sense of humour, and found that he
had a knack of saying bitter things, which caught people on the raw; he said
them because they amused him, hardly realising how much they hurt, and was much
offended when he found that his victims regarded him with active dislike. The
humiliations he suffered when he first went to school had caused in him a
shrinking from his fellows which he could never entirely overcome; he remained
shy and silent. But though he did everything to alienate the sympathy of other
boys he longed with all his heart for the popularity which to some was so
easily accorded. These from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though
he was inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with others, though he made
little jokes at their expense, he would have given anything to change places
with them.”
― W.
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
“Human
sympathy has its limits.”
― F.
Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“I
just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.”
―
Octavia E. Butler
“There
weren't any curtains in the windows, and the books that didn't fit into the
bookshelf lay piled on the floor like a bunch of intellectual refugees.”
―
Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
“The
true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon
oneself; my first homelands have been books, and to a lesser degree schools.”
―
Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
“Writers
are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they
are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”
―
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
“I
knew you talked to books. I didn't realize they listened.”
―
Margaret Rogerson, Sorcery of Thorns
“Just
as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so
can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the
more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is
like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to
reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has
read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has
been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.”
―
Arthur Schopenhauer
“Prometheus,
thief of light, giver of light, bound by the gods, must have been a book.”
―
Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
“When
you are old and grey and full of sleep
And
nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And
slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your
eyes had once, and of their shadows deep”
―
W.B. Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
“I
think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life
when you most need them.”
―
Emma Thompson
“All
that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic
preservation in the pages of books.”
―
Thomas Carlyle
“A
stereotype becomes a stereotype when a significant percentage of the population
appears to conform to it.”
―
Kelley Armstrong, Dime Store Magic
“Books
are like oxygen to a deep-sea diver," she had once said. "Take them
away and you might as well begin counting the bubbles.”
―
Alan Bradley, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
