Book quotes
21K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside book — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I always write too long in the beginning, then it is a matter of going through it over and over again on subsequent drafts, looking for anything that slows down the narrative. It can be hard, cutting out parts I love, but I try to make the book as tight as possible so that the reader doesn't get bored."
"Before I start a book, I talk over my characters with a friend who is a counselor. I like to make sure I have the right dynamics in place and understand each character's belief system, fears, coping mechanisms and things like that."
"To the question of writing at all we have sometimes been counselled to forget it, or rather the writing of books. What is required, we are told, is plays and films. Books are out of date! The book is dead, long live television! One question which is not even raised let alone considered is: Who will write the drama and film scripts when the generation that can read and write has been used up?"
"I do not think that there need be the conflict between books and videos, that one would drive out the other. It certainly is possible to watch the screen for some things and for others to sit down and read, because the screen is easier to do, to watch is easier than to read because you don't have to contemplate anything. Someone else has done the work of putting it on the video."
"If you ask me, Now, is it your best book? I would say, I don't really know. I wouldn't even want to say. And I'd even go on and say, I don't even think so."
"Community college is like a disco with books: "Here's ten dollars; let me get my learn on!""
"Learn how to cook. Read books that will educate you. Get an education. Get a career. And support yourself. And live in a section of town that isn't conducive to violence."
"I can't cook, but I have a nice book of menus... and I can plate and set the table."
"Success is just hanging out with my kids. I mean, I always say if you have options, you're rich. To me, success is the fact that hey, I just did a movie and maybe I'll do some stand up, maybe I'll will write a book or maybe I will do a play."
"American author Mark Twain, while viewed as liberal and non-judgmental, did at times demonstrate both these characteristics. While his reasons for detesting the Christian faith are unclear, they seem to have been profound and deep-rooted. Having lambasted the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, in a later quote he referred to the Book of Mormon as "chloroform in print.""
"The diet book is one of those fool-and-money separation devices that seems, like roulette or slot machines, never to lose its power."
"My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd."
"And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home."
"That is the person you want publishing your book. To be in it, you really have to believe in books and love whatever it is you're publishing. Both on the book side and especially on the magazine side, I've had editors that I did not get the same feeling from. That feeling of, "This is something I believe in, I don't care how long, I'm going to publish it" - that kind of passion and commitment means a lot to you."
"Chloe Honum's brilliant first book The Tulip-Flame traces an identity forming within radically divergent but interlocking systems: a family traumatized by the mother's suicide, a failed relationship, the practice of ballet, a garden-each strict, exacting. And with 'a crow's sky-knowing mind,' Honum in every case transfigures emotion by way of elegant language and formal restraint. Chloe Honum is 'one astounding flame' of a poet, and I predict a long-lasting one."
"Little books are the things to write at my age, I've decided. Avoid the big ones, go for the little ones."
"When I was very young, one of my favourite books was Captain's Courageous and I suppose one of the reasons I loved it, it was a life I knew I should have had, learning all the different bits of the ship and learning to catch fish and rig sails and to -all the things that I never learned and I never learned the discipline, but I hungered after it."
"I'm certainly not a linguist. I learned what languages I could learn in order to read books and I can't really speak them. I couldn't have stayed out of jail in most of them."
"If we want a book to do more than what it does, that's a condemnation. If we want it to do more of what it does, that's an endorsement."
"When you broadcast your book reading voluntarily, it creates moments of fascinating serendipity."
