Book Quotes

"The multitude of books is making us ignorant"

Voltaire, Writer

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint"

Mark Twain, Author

"A room without books is like a body without a soul"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

"I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too"

Thomas Jefferson, President

"Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?"

Albert Einstein, Physicist

"Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does"

Groucho Marx, Comedian

"Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books"

Charles Caleb Colton, Writer

"The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume"

Paul Theroux, Novelist

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn"

Ernest Hemingway, Novelist

"Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation"

William Butler Yeats, Poet

"There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Poet

"And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home"

Christopher Hitchens, Author

"The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story"

Donna Tartt, Novelist

"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"

E. M. Forster, Novelist

"When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings"

W. E. B. Du Bois, Writer

"A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again"

W. E. B. Du Bois, Writer

"Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn"

Joseph Addison, Writer

"My office has been one of the most scrupulous in the country with regard to the protection of individual rights. I've been on record for years in law journals and books as championing the rights of the individual against the oppressive power of the state"

Jim Garrison, Public Servant

"I have zero desire, just so you know, to be in the limelight. I don't think it's good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor. You're not going to see me giving my opinions in the public arena, until I start selling my book. I'm going to emerge then submerge"

George W. Bush, President

"Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications"

Fran Lebowitz, Journalist

"I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again"

Chaim Potok, Author

"A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel"

Chaim Potok, Author

"If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level"

John Le Carre, Author

"Thank heaven, though, one of the few mistakes I haven't made is to talk about the unwritten book"

John Le Carre, Author

"I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them"

Gene Wolfe, Writer

"I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram"

Jonathan Lethem, Writer

"I've given up reading books. I find it takes my mind off myself"

Oscar Levant, Composer

"Now, to describe the process of the Wrapped Reichstag, which went from 1971 to '95, there is an entire book about that, because each one of our projects has its own book. The book is not an art book, meaning it's not written by an art historian"

Christo, Artist

"I think plays, like books, are endemic. They grow out of the soil of the writer and the place he's writing about. I think, you just can't move them about, you know"

Peter Shaffer, Playwright

"I couldn't be happier about being a part of 'Hunger Games' and to play Katniss. I have a huge responsibility to the fans of this incredible book and I don't take it lightly. I will give everything I have to these movies and to this role to make it worthy of Suzanne Collins' masterpiece"

Jennifer Lawrence, Actress

"Take a look at the books other people have in their homes"

Jerzy Kosinski, Novelist

"All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing"

Moliere, Playwright

"One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print"

William Goldman, Novelist

"You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here"

Harper Lee, Novelist

"I still have a full-time day job, which is why it took me five years to write An Ear to the Ground, and why I won't have another book finished by next week"

Ken Thompson, Scientist

"All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool"

Steven Brust, Author

"But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most"

Peter Davison, Actor

"Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away"

Clarence Darrow, Lawyer

"The new spirituality will bring about what I'm calling the 'end of better.' And that is in fact what is called for in the next of the series of books that I've been writing"

Neale Donald Walsch, Author

"I love old books. They tell you stories about their use. You can see where the fingerprints touched the pages as they held the book open. You can see how long they lingered on each page by the finger stains"

Jack Bowman, Actor

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