Book quotes
21K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside book — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"You can sail in the desert with a ship of fools. You can smuggle in Moses and his book of rules. But you can't take a mother and give her back her son. What kind of freedom is bought with a gun? People like to build their prison walls when they're afraid to look inside... a thousand points of light are the muzzle flashes in the night. And the freedoms you profess to hold won't bring the dead back from the cold."
"The entire Quran is a big joke. If it was not so violent, it would be the biggest comic book ever written."
"I believe my high school book said I was most likely to become a candlestick maker. Guessing I didn't exactly exude confidence but just goes to show you that your path is yours to choose and make the best of and not for someone else to tell you what you can or cannot be."
"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."
"From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world."
"Say it to them. Or say it to yourself in the mirror. Say it in a letter you'll never send or in a book millions might read someday. I think you deserve to look back on your life without a chorus of resounding voices saying 'I could've, but it's too late now.'"
"There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful."
"People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk."
"I am writing a book. So far I have the pages numbered."
"Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books ... I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life."
"If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn't expecting it."
"Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still."
"Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book."
"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease."
"Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."
"Reading was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I'd keep the book hidden so I could read during class. Before long I bought a small stereo and spent all my time in my room, listening to jazz records. But I had almost no desire to talk to anyone about the experience I gained through books and music. I felt happy just being me and no one else. In that sense I could be called a stack-up loner."
"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness."
"I have left my book, I have left my room, For I heard you singing Through the gloom."
"One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain."
"No book can teach you about yourself, no psychologist, none of the professors or philosophers. What they can teach you is what they think you are or what they think you should be."
