"We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them"
Book quotes
Book
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Book quotes (page 215 of 1049)
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"[If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases."
"Without books, I would certainly die."
"Who is writing these screenwriting books? Not actually writing for the studios in Hollywood. These are people that have one or a half of a credit on maybe one movie, or none. So they're all theoretical."
"Books are great for if you want to work on the craft of writing for yourself, or, you know, to write novels or indie films, stuff like that."
"I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may meanI myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both."
"People a thousand years from now - this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our living and in our dying."
"The book is first and foremost something I made for myself."
"The truth is that since the first book, I have wanted to emulate Benjamin Franklin and put together a healthy, wealthy and wise trilogy and so healthy was 'The 4-Hour Body,' wealthy was 'The 4-Hour Workweek' and then wise is 'The 4-Hour Chef.'"
"It's pretty lonely and sad to be single. Every night was the same for me, I'd go home and curl up in bed with my favorite book. Well, actually it was a magazine."
"A film, since it is primarily a visual medium, should really be like a silent film. You should be able to watch something and understand what was going on and use voice when you need to communicate something you can't necessarily communicate visually. The book is the opposite. The book is an inner monologue which is beautiful."
"almost any object, including this book you hold, can turn up as Exhibit A in a murder trial."
"Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months."
"I would only read the novels that people classify as 'beach books' if I were being held prisoner and the only alternative was the 'Book of Mormon.'"
"If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering."
"There were no mail-order catalogues in 1492. Marco Polo's journal was the wish book of Renaissance Europe. Then, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and landed in Sears' basement. Despite all the Indians on the escalator, Columbus' visit came to be known as a "discovery."
"If you want to make a name for yourself, the oldest trick in the book is to attack what everybody else reveres."
"I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage."
"I don't have a very high opinion, actually, of the world of criticism - or the practice of criticism. I think I admire art criticism, criticism of painting and sculpture, far more than I do that of say films and books, literary or film criticism. But I don't much like the practice. I think there are an awful lot of bad people in it."
"I never outline. I don't work from an outline. I have no idea where the book is going. I mean, even two-thirds of the way through, I don't know how it's going to end."