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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"To use books rightly, is to go to them for help; to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power fail; to be led by them into wider sight and purer conception than our own, and to receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinions."
"Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading."
"When I was 12 years old, I read Nancy Drew mysteries and biographies of Madame Curie and Florence Nightingale and books about girls who love horses or go to nursing school. I belonged to the Girl Scouts and got A's in school and rarely disobeyed my parents. I still kept a collection of Barbie dolls in my room, and I almost never spoke to boys."
"Very often I'll find out at the end of a book what I put in at the beginning. A sort of process of elimination and discovery in one."
"There never yet have been, nor are there now, too many good books."
"Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again."
"What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds-not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity."
"In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price."
"When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff."
"If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It’s the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds."
"I do need publicity but not for what I do for good. I need publicity for my book. I need publicity for my fights. I need publicity for my movie but not for helping people. Then it is no longer sincere."
"It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one."
"I go on many thrilling adventures and wondrous, profound escapades through books."
"The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."
"They were strange books. They spoke about mercury, salt, dragons, and kings, and he didn't understand any of it."
"I am full of admiration for the technologists who have developed all sorts of gadgets for the purpose of improving communications. However, I believe that all these fascinating machines are complementary to, and not substitutes for, books and the printed word."
"How many good books suffer neglect through the inefficiency of their beginnings!"
"I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author."
"This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than we do for chewing gum."
"There is no frigate like a book"
