Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry; The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy; The books that people talk about we never can recall; And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.

- Wells, Carolyn

Best Quotes about Books - reading

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

Wilde, Oscar

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.

Whipple, Edwin P.

There was a time when the world acted on books; now books act on the world.

Joubert, Joseph

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.

Rochman, Hazel

All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet. There are passages in Ulysses which can be read only in the toilet -- if one wants to extract the full flavor of their content.

Miller, Henry

Footnotes are the finer-suckered surfaces that allow testicular paragraphs to hold fast to the wider reality of the library.

Baker, Nicholson

In science read the newest works, in literature read the oldest.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

Books are men of higher stature; the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

Barrett, E.S.

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.

Forster, Edward M.

10.

You can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you need.

Kump, Peter

11.

Thy books should, like thy friends, not many be, yet such wherein men may thy judgment see.

Wycherley, William

12.

When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own.

Berger, John

13.

A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You should live several lives while reading it.

Styron, William

14.

It is books that teach us to refine our pleasures when young, and to recall them with satisfaction when we are old.

Hunt, Leigh

15.

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book.

Kempis, Thomas

16.

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.

Carter, Angela

17.

When the book comes out it may hurt you -- but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.

Baldwin, James

18.

Read as you taste fruit or savor wine, or enjoy friendship, love or life.

Jackson, Holbrook

19.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

20.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring

Chappell, Warren

21.

A book that is shut is but a block.

Fuller, Thomas

22.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Brodsky, Joseph

23.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.

Lincoln, Abraham

24.

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book -- I'll waste no time reading it.

Hadas, Moses

25.

This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing.

Miller, Henry

26.

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.

Forster, Edward M.

27.

The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.

Faulkner, William

28.

With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.

Pound, Ezra

29.

The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.

Wolfe, Thomas

30.

What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.

Phillips, Wendell

31.

Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.

Worsthorne, Sir Peregrine

32.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

33.

Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare.

Martineau, Harriet

34.

A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.

Millay, Edna St. Vincent

35.

I feel like I'm drowning. Every night, I'm carrying home loads of things to read but I'm too exhausted. I keep clipping things and Xeroxing them and planning to read them eventually, but I just end up throwing it all away and feeling guilty.

Levine, Ghita

36.

Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

37.

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

Byron, Lord

38.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates loot on Treasure Island and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.

Disney, Walt

39.

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.

Benet, Stephen Vincent

40.

How can you dare teach a man to read until you've taught him everything else first?

Shaw, George Bernard

41.

The age of the book is almost gone.

Steiner, George

42.

A good title is the title of a successful book.

Chandler, Raymond

43.

A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.

Chambers, Oswald

44.

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man nothing else that he builds ever lasts monuments fall; nations perish; civilization grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts, of the hearts of men centuries dead.

Day, Clarence

45.

She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.

Rhys, Jean

46.

Surviving and thriving as a professional today demands two new approaches to the written word. First, it requires a new approach to orchestrating information, by skillfully choosing what to read and what to ignore. Second, it requires a new approach to integrating information, by reading faster and with greater comprehension.

Calano, Jimmy

47.

You will find most books worth reading are worth reading twice.

Morely, John

48.

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in it.

Byron, Lord

49.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

Benson, Arthur Christopher

50.

Read, read, read. Read everything-- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

Faulkner, William