Book Quotes

"There's not too much difference between writing a picture book and writing a collection of a hundred poems or so, except that the bigger books take a lot longer to do"

Jack Prelutsky, Poet

"There are plenty of bad editors who try to impose their own vision on a book"

Terri Windling, Artist

"I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer"

Robert Cormier, Author

"Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it"

Michael Crichton, Author

"I got $30 from Nation magazine for a poem and $500 for my first book of poems"

Jim Harrison, Writer

"I had to learn chord shapes. I bought books with chord charts. I used to listen to all kinds of pop music"

Mick Taylor, Musician

"I wanted the feel in these books to be like an epic fantasy, with kings, queens, dukes and court politics, but of course like what I was explaining before, about making the science make sense, you have to make the politics make sense, too"

Kevin J. Anderson, Author

"When I wrote my book I wanted to love someone. I wanted to be in love. Now I know that I shall never be in love - and I no longer wish to be"

Mary MacLane, Writer

"The only joy I had was writing what was. That book was. It no longer amuses me to be all the things I was when I wrote that. But it is my story as I was then"

Mary MacLane, Writer

"I loved to read when I was a kid, and as soon as I realized that an actual person got to make up the books I loved so much, I decided that that was the job for me"

Margaret Haddix, Author

"When I did start writing books, I didn't realize it, but the girls that grew up watching the show became moms"

Lisa Whelchel, Actor

"I like reading Ball Tongue lyrics and all that stuff. And they published a book, and I wouldn't give my lyrics, and it's all wrong in the book, and I giggle. It's funny"

Jonathan Davis, Musician

"Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too"

Studs Terkel, Journalist

"But my estimates, for instance, based upon book information, were simply ridiculous, fanciful images of African attractions were soon dissipated, anticipated pleasures vanished, and all crude ideas began to resolve themselves into shape"

Henry Morton Stanley, Explorer

"I decided we should book ourselves, so I started booking the band"

Ruben Blades, Musician

"The joke in our family is that we can cry reading the phone book"

Ron Reagan, Journalist

"I'm addicted to email, but other than that, there are practical things - being able to buy a book on the internet that you can't find in your local bookshop. This could be a lifeline if you live further from the sources"

Marilyn Hacker, Poet

"With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy"

Lope de Vega, Playwright

"Let's just say that I don't think our show has very much in common with the book any more"

Kristin Davis, Actress

"I used to walk to school with my nose buried in a book"

Jeremy Collier, Clergyman

"I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out. I like a little suspense when I am writing, too"

James Patterson, Author

"For many years I had heard about an underworld consisting of people who act out a vampire fantasy while I was living in New York. Fortunately for me there are also several books on the phenomena"

James Patterson, Author

"The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time"

Joseph Lewis, Writer

"The more I like a book, the more slowly I read. this spontaneous talking back to a book is one of the things that makes reading so valuable"

Anatole Broyard, Critic

"I find myself gravitating towards drama. It interests me. In the books I read, the paintings I like, it's always the darker stuff"

Naomi Watts, Actress

"Moby Dick - that book is so amazing. I just realized that it starts with two characters meeting in bed; that's how my book begins, too, but I hadn't noticed the parallel before, two characters forced to share a bed, reluctantly"

Michael Chabon, Author

"It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't"

Carolyn Wells, Author

"That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit"

Amos Bronson Alcott, Educator

"The Butcher Boy is a very great novel indeed and a very important Irish novel. The ambiguity of that is, he's writing a book about an appalling situation and he does it in a hilarious way"

Stephen Rea, Actor

"I don't sell enough books to pay for the lawyers, however. And these various problems finally became too much"

Peter Sotos, Writer

"In the 1950s we use to feel that television was taking away our comic readership; with today's exciting, powerfully visual movies I have to wonder about their effect on the kids' loyalty to the comic book medium all over again"

Joe Simon

"It's weirder and more surprising than the other books. I think there are more places where it's just more reality bending, deliberately so. I think it's a lot more emotionally raw"

Cory Doctorow, Journalist

"You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one"

Paul Auster, Author

"I don't know if she should worry too much, I mean some of our greatest writers have had movies made of their books, lots of Hemingway novels were turned into movies, it doesn't hurt the book"

Paul Auster, Author

"Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I have friends who read my books in Greek"

Brian Lumley, Writer

"The first function of a book review should be, I believe, to give some idea of the contents and character of the book"

Walter Kaufmann, Philosopher

"I just finished my 11th book last week, so I'm ready to start the next one"

Gloria Stuart, Actress

"I've written a book on gangs, taught a course on gangs at Occidental"

Tom Hayden, Politician

"I was not allowed to take notes but my friend and I memorised those two and a half pages. Most people talked to me because of the warning. They knew this book was not going to be the official line"

Jung Chang, Writer

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