Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.

- Fadiman, Clifton

Best Quotes about Books - reading

If a book comes from the heart it will contrive to reach other hearts. All art and author craft are of small account to that.

Carlyle, Thomas

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

Channing, William Ellery

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

Hadas, Moses

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

A good book is the best of friends, the same today and for ever.

Tupper, Martin

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

Rochman, Hazel

A book is a part of life, a manifestation of life, just as much as a tree or a horse or a star. It obeys its own rhythms, its own laws, whether it be a novel, a play, or a diary. The deep, hidden rhythm of life is always there -- that of the pulse, the heart beat.

Miller, Henry

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

Wilde, Oscar

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

Frost, Robert

10.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

Benjamin, Walter

11.

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

12.

I've never know any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

Secondat, Charles de

13.

A library is thought in cold storage.

Samuel, Herbert

14.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books -- repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.

Lawrence, D. H.

15.

Very young children eat their books, literally devouring their contents. This is one reason for the scarcity of first editions of Alice in Wonderland and other favorites of the nursery.

Rosenbach, A. S. W.

16.

The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one's mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.

Orwell, George

17.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

Thackeray, William M.

18.

Read Homer once, and you can read no more. For all books else appear so mean, and so poor. Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read, and Homer will be all the books you need.

Buckingham, Duke of

19.

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

Baker, Nicholson

20.

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

Fielding, Henry

21.

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.

Fusselman, W.

22.

The age of the book is almost gone.

Steiner, George

23.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

Kieran, John

24.

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

Byron, Lord

25.

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

Hunt, Leigh

26.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Socrates

27.

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

Townsend, Atwood H.

28.

Books had instant replay long before televised sports.

Williams, Bert

29.

The pleasure of reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.

Mansfield, Katherine

30.

My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon.

Hood, Thomas

31.

I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.

Bevan, Aneurin

32.

Everything in this book may be wrong. [The Savior's Manual]

Bach, Richard

33.

The best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self-activity.

Carlyle, Thomas

34.

The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

35.

Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.

Bennett, Arnold

36.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

Chambers, Robert

37.

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

Brodsky, Joseph

38.

There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

39.

I heard his library burned down and both books were destroyed -- and one of them hadn't even been colored in yet.

Dawkins, John

40.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

Eliot, George

41.

A successful book cannot afford to be more than ten percent new.

Mcluhan, Marshall

42.

Books succeed, and lives fail.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

43.

The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most.

Crane, Frank

44.

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

Morely, John

45.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

Goldsmith, Oliver

46.

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

Guin, Ursula K. Le

47.

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

Millay, Edna St. Vincent

48.

After all, the world is not a stage -- not to me: nor a theatre: nor a show-house of any sort. And art, especially novels, are not little theatres where the reader sits aloft and watches... and sighs, commiserates, condones and smiles. That's what you want a book to be: because it leaves you so safe and superior, with your two-dollar ticket to the show. And that's what my books are not and never will be. Whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he doesn't like it -- if he wants a safe seat in the audience -- let him read someone else.

Lawrence, D. H.

49.

Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare.

Martineau, Harriet

50.

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.

Maugham, W. Somerset