Book Quotes

"There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?"

"I had already done a lot of research for Rough Riders, keeping notebooks and old photographs. Some of the books were antiques for that time period, with the covers falling off"

Tom Berenger, Actor

"I haven't made up my mind about doing anymore Landover books"

Terry Brooks, Writer

"Getting close to books, and spending time by myself, I was obliged to think about things I would never have thought about if I was busy romping around with a brother and sister"

Shelby Foote, Author

"It's different in Scotland. People who come to readings are more interested in literature as such, but the readership in general is really quite diverse. It's a cliche, but it's said that people who read my books don't read any other books, and you do get that element"

Irvine Welsh, Novelist

"I'd always liked to read, but when I picked up books I wasn't getting the same kind of excitement from them that I was from going out clubbing. I wanted to get the same kind of feel"

Irvine Welsh, Novelist

"Basically, particularly in Britain, it's a hegemonic thing that people who write tend to come from the leisure classes. They can afford the time and the books"

Irvine Welsh, Novelist

"My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work"

Mary Oliver, Poet

"I just signed to do my next book with Ecco Press, a new primer or encyclopedia. This will be my take on what classic Italian cooking is"

Mario Batali, Celebrity

"No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation"

Marguerite Duras, Novelist

"My last comment was, though, that Congress has cooked the books"

Don Nickles, Politician

"Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche"

Tanith Lee, Writer

"When I first began to combine letters other than Hebrew, I read every book in German that came my way, and from these I certainly received according to the nature of my soul"

Shmuel Y. Agnon

"This book is pointing the way into it for people that see it as daunting or a mystery. Some people just do it, but others need help with the mindset, permission almost to listen to themselves. Understanding how things work is the key"

Sally Schneider, Writer

"A lot of people love the idea of improvising but are terrified of it, so I tried to make a book that was not a chef's book about improvising but a real home cook's book with a real home cook's pantry, supermarket ingredients, that sort of thing"

Sally Schneider, Writer

"So I went in front of the judge, and I had my St. Jude prayer book in my pocket and my St. Jude medal. And I'm standing there and that judge said I was found guilty, so he sentenced me to what the law prescribed: one to 14 years"

Aaron Neville, Musician

"I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense"

Harold Kushner, Clergyman

"When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book, the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more stressful than you would like"

Julian Assange, Activist

"I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books"

Harvey Pekar, Writer

"I've always liked getting away with just a little bit of what you're not supposed to. Like my first book, Billy's Booger, got me in trouble with the principal's office"

William Joyce, Author

"An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details"

Roald Dahl, Novelist

"One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is the want of an index"

Lafcadio Hearn, Author

"I am writing a book and that takes third place of importance"

John Entwistle, Musician

"When a French book becomes an international hit it is because of the author and not because of the language. The same goes for movies"

Jean-Jacques Annaud, Director

"There was reference made to a book written in Greek by a former Rabbi who had been converted to Christianity. There was reference to a publication of a high clergyman of Milan. Not even did Jews raise objections to that book"

Julius Streicher, Soldier

"I get up in the morning, do my e-mail, I check my e-mails all day. I'll go online and I'll buy my books at Amazon.com, but I don't want to buy all of them because I want to go to Duttons and I want to buy books from another human being"

Joseph Bologna, Actor

"You come to work because the office is a resource: The office is a place where you can meet with other people, and the office has libraries of books and information on CD-ROM that might help you with your work"

Jay Chiat, Businessman

"We set up a beta site, a test site, with movie, music and book reviews. If you're reading them and you want to buy a book or a ticket for a movie that's reviewed on the site, you can do that without leaving our site"

Jay Chiat, Businessman

"I'm doing a book, 'Chasing Science,' about the pleasures of science as a spectator sport"

Frederik Pohl, Writer

"My first course came and I put down my book, and I just happened to put up my hand to scratch my head and discovered that my toupee had been blown by the wind and was folded over backwards on the top of my head!"

Derek Jacobi, Actor

"Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another. I very soon concluded that nothing would induce me to read, let alone make notes on, hundreds and hundreds of very, very, very boring books"

Simon Raven, Novelist

"Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor's New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations"

Roger Penrose, Physicist

"I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book"

Jack Vance, Author

"In the book, I write about children in first grade who were taught to read by reading want ads. They learned to write by writing job applications. Imagine what would happen if anyone tried to do that to children in a predominantly white suburban school"

Jonathan Kozol, Writer

"At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book"

Jonathan Kozol, Writer

"I want to make a summing up, brief and to the point, but thorough. I have never suppressed a word in my books out of regard for other people and their prejudices"

John Henry Mackay, Writer

"I'm opening a store at the end of the month in the New York meatpacking district. I'm launching a line of bedding this summer, and I am writing a book that will be out next January"

Genevieve Gorder, Designer

"My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. It's about Washington and the army and the war. It's the nadir, the low point of the United States of America"

David McCullough, Historian

"I just did a picture book called The Wildest Brother on Earth, and you will find both of my children in there"

Cornelia Funke, Author

"The essays are very solipsistic and self-absorbed, I'm totally conscious of that. To me, book writing is fun, and I basically just write about things that are entertaining to myself"

Chuck Klosterman, Critic

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