Books Quotes - Page 20

That was always my fear, that perhaps books would lead me astray, teaching me about a life that didn’t match reality.

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.

Michael Ondaatje

If you cannot judge a book by its cover, surely we should not judge an author by one book alone?

E.A. Bucchianeri

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. You may not appreciate them at first. You may pine for your novel of crude and unadulterated adventure. You may, and will, give it the preference when you can. But the dull days come, and the rainy days come, and always you are driven to fill up the chinks of your reading with the worthy books which wait so patiently for your notice. And then suddenly, on a day which marks an epoch in your life, you understand the difference. You see, like a flash, how the one stands for nothing, and the other for literature. From that day onwards you may return to your crudities, but at least you do so with some standard of comparison in your mind. You can never be the same as you were before. Then gradually the good thing becomes more dear to you; it builds itself up with your growing mind; it becomes a part of your better self, and so, at last, you can look, as I do now, at the old covers and love them for all that they have meant in the past.

Arthur Conan Doyle

The parrot had a range of phrases. His own name ('Niko, Niko'), the name of his original owner and now 'Stavros'. Occasionally he would also say 'Panagia mou', which could be an expression of piety but also a gentle expletive, depending on how it was said. With the parrot it was hard to tell. It did not sound pious.

Victoria Hislop

Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget you have one of your own. That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, trowing your whole tomorrow out of whack, simply to find out what happens to some people who, you know perfectly well, are made up.

Barbara Kingsolve

Human existence is temporary and all the knowledge of the universe we acquire will in time be forgotten because there will be no humans left to benefit from any of the stuff we learned.And yet, this doesn't invalidate scientific exploration to me. We seek to understand the universe because it makes our lives better and more rich. Similarly, we tell stories (and think about why and how to tell stories) because it makes human existence richer. Made-up stories matter. They bring us pleasure and solace and nurture empathy by letting us see the world through others' eyes. They also help us to feel unalone, to understand that our grief and joy is shared not just by those around us but by all those who came before us and all those still yet to come.

John Green

It's a truth universally acknowledged...

Jane Austen

The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers. She was excited, filled with strength. The polished sentences had arrived, it seemed, like so many other things, at just the right time. How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others?

James Salter

Reading Chekhov, I felt not happy, exactly, but as close to happiness as I knew I was likely to come. And it occurred to me that this was the pleasure and mystery of reading, as well as the answer to those who say that books will disappear. For now, books are still the best way of taking great art and its consolations along with us on a bus.

Francine Prose

That's what sofas are for: sit down, drink a cup of tea, talk of literature. At least that's how I see it.

Sophie Divry

People perish. Books are immortal.

Robert Harris

These two oo in "book" are like the two eyes of a reader who fell in love with a story.

Stefanos Livos

They were...no ordinary group, gathering together to kill an evening, to seek refuge from critical husbands and demanding children while idly discussing their new best-seller. They met because literature was their shared passion. Books were as important to them as breath itself. They shared the ability to immerse themselves in the lives of fictional characters, to argue passionately about the development of plots, about decisions taken, dilemmas resolved.

Gloria Goldreich

When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf-life in some corner on an out-of-the-way library somehwere in Reykjavik, Valladolid or Vancouver.

Amos Oz

All photos speak a thousand words. This one contained a library.

Rivera Sun

Books are in the mind, Grandfather Alessandro said. Too many books and you forget your body is in the world.

Tom Spanbauer

I'm interested in things women do that aren't spoken about. Manto's stories let me breathe. They make me feel like less of a monster.

Mohsin Hamid

Reading books is a way for you to communicate with and learn from the best thinkers that are writing today and that have ever lived.

Joshua Rogers

Reading is a time machine that allows you to acquire wisdom from the past and to analyze and imagine another person’s vision of the future.

Joshua Rogers

Books can make a difference in dispelling prejudice and building community: not with role models and recipes, not with noble messages about the human family, but with enthralling stories that make us imagine the lives of others. A good story lets you know people as individuals in all their particularity and conflict; and once you see someone as a person—flawed, complex, striving—you’ve reached beyond stereotype.

Hazel Rochman

His voice had a faint trace of an accent she couldn't place - one that made her pretty sure he was no local kid infected the night before.

Holly Black

I'm sorry,' she said to each of the dead as she unzipped and unfastened their things, 'I'm sorry Courtney. I'm sorry Marcus. I'm sorry Rachel. I'm sorry Jon. I'm sorry I'm alive and you're dead. I'm sorry I was asleep. I'm sorry I didn't save you and now I'm taking your things. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Holly Black

You said you were allowed to lose it,' some part of her reminded herself. 'Not yet, not yet.

Holly Black

Behind Tana there was the sounds of splintering wood, as though something very large had hot the door. "No," she said softly, "Oh no. No." "Leave me," said Gavriel. ....."Shut up or I might," she told him.

Holly Black

Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.

Charles Frahman

In the dream, Tana's mother loved her more than anyone or anything. More than death.

Holly Black

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Books Quotes - Page 20

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