Book Burning Quotes

The Tree of Life was an ancient symbol of interconnection, fertility, and eternal life - precisely because of this legendary tree's fruit. Fruit is part of our essence, a basic element of who we are. We cannot survive without fruit on this planet. It outweighs the nutrition of any other food. Yet the current "health" movement toward low-carb diets has put fruit on the endangered species list, with the goal of making it extinct. Is this denial? Ignorance? Foolishness? We're not talking about uneducated people who are driving the trend. We're talking about smart, highly intelligent professionals with advanced degrees in medicine and nutrition. If they're advising patients to shun fruit, it must be because of their training, the misinformation out there, or their own selective interests. Have you heard of book burning? If the anti-sugar war keeps up its momentum, fruit trees will be next to go up in flames. ~ Anthony William

Sometimes I want to have a mental book burning that would scour my mind clean of all the filthy visions literature has conjured there. But how to do without 'The Illiad?' How to do without 'Macbeth?' ~ Geraldine Brooks

Personally, I am dead against the burning of books. ~ Augustine Birrell

We see book-burning as a crime against humanity: it's intolerable because books represent a kind of freedom to us. ~ Samantha Harvey

If people wrote their reviews on paper and put them into a real, physical library, I am sure that the Goodreads administrators would be very reluctant to pull them down from shelves and burn them. When you can get rid of a piece of writing just by clicking on a few links, there's a temptation to believe that it's less serious. But it isn't. It's just less clear what you've done. ~ G.R. Reader

It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people. ~ Heinrich Heine

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education. ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold

Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. ~ Ray Bradbury

Scientists are dedicated to asking questions in the search for truth. But they too are human, and like all humans, they would like their answers to be clean and clear and easy. In their desire for simple solutions, scientists are prone to fall into two traps as they question the reality of God. The first is to throw the baby out with the bath water. And the second is tunnel vision. There is clearly a lot of dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God. Holy wars. Inquisitions. Animal sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Superstition. Stultification. Dogmatism. Ignorance. Hypocrisy. Self-righteousness. Rigidity. Cruelty. Book-burning. Witch-burning. Inhibition. Fear. Conformity. Morbid guilt. Insanity. The list is almost endless. But is all this what God has done to humans or what humans have done to God? It is abundantly evident that belief in God is often destructively dogmatic. Is the problem, then, that humans tend to believe in God, or is the problem that humans tend to be dogmatic? ~ M. Scott Peck

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves. ~ Geraldine Brooks

Book burning is a charming old custom, hallowed by antiquity. It has been practiced for centuries by fascists, communists, atheists, school children, rival authors, and tired librarians. Like everything of importance since the invention of the cloak and the shroud, its origins are cloaked in mystery and shrouded in secrecy. Some scholars believe that the first instance of book burning occurred in the Middle Ages, when a monk was trying to illuminate a manuscript. All agree that book burning was almost non-existent during the period when books were made of stone. ~ Richard Armour

My men are my references. They're waiting outside for the books. They're dangerous."
"Men like that always are. ~ Ray Bradbury

And that's the most horrible thing about censorship: To avoid falling afoul of the censors, we question ourselves and censor ourselves and make a big deal out of things in our heads. We do the work of the control freaks for them, out of a desire to avoid them. ~ G.R. Reader

Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people ~ Heinrich Heine

I am Envy, begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an oyster-wife. I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt; I am lean with seeing others eat - O that there would come a famine through all the world, that all might die, and I live alone; then thou should'st see how fat I would be! But must thou sit and I stand? Come down, with a vengeance! ~ Christopher Marlowe

It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed. ~ Alberto Manguel

...people burn books, and that they ban books is, in a way, a good sign. It's a good sign because it means books have power. When people burn books, it's because they're afraid of what's inside them... ~ Marcus Sedgwick

Shut the door, they're coming through the window, shut the window, they're coming through the door, are the words to an old song. They fit my lifestyle with newly arriving butcher/censors every month. Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with censorship and book-burning in the future, write to tell me of this exquisite irony ... ~ Ray Bradbury

To book your next dream, read before bed! ~ Nanette L. Avery

Never underestimate the power of giving a book! ~ Carmela Dutra

I love to decorate a room - from the furniture to the objects to the books. ~ Aerin Lauder

[about a book lent by a crush]
Last night I read into the wee small hours. Fell asleep with my face in the book, my nose pressed up against the print. Could smell Sean on the pages, the lingering odours from his sportsbag. Man scent, liniment, damp earth. ~ Bob Condron

Part broken - part whole, you begin again. ( from 'Why books seem shockproof against change.' THE TIMES: BOOKS) ~ Jeanette Winterson

The purpose of this book is to help caregivers understand how careseekers image God. ~ M. Kathryn Armistead

Books can be immensely powerful. The ideas in them can change the way people think. Yet it was the Nazis and Stalin's officers who committed terrible crimes, and not Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto - and of course, the Manifesto contained many key ideas that are still relevant and important today, long after Stalin has gone. There is a crucial distinction between the book and its effect - it's crucial because if you talk about a book being harmful rather than its effect you begin to legitimise censorship. Abhorrent ideas need to be challenged by better ones, not banned. ~ John Farndon

A first novel of astonishing force, craft and beauty, The Headmaster's Wager conjures up a dizzyingly evocative wartime Saigon in the story of Percival Chen, a Chinese schoolmaster in Vietnam. This extraordinary book made me weep. Read it. ~ Janice Y.K. Lee

In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, your sense of shape and size in the world. ~ Ray Bradbury

Only one hour in the normal day is more pleasurable than the hour spent in bed with a book before going to sleep, and that is the hour spent in bed with a book after being called in the morning. ~ Rose Macaulay

It seems that one ought to read in two ways: 1) because of a particular and personal interest, which makes the thing one's own, regardless of what other people think of the book 2) to a certain extent, because it is something one 'ought to have read' but one must be quite clear this why one is reading. ~ T. S. Eliot

Jack Campbell's dazzling new series is military science fiction at its best. Not only does he tell a yarn of great adventure and action, but he also develops the characters with satisfying depth. I thoroughly enjoyed this rip-roaring read, and I can hardly wait for the next book. ~ Catherine Asaro

Talking about how I might write the next book is like talking about whether or not to have sex. Any dithering ruins it. ~ Louise Erdrich

Some people would say it's a bad idea to bring a fire-spider into a public library. Those people would probably be right, but it was better than leaving him alone in the house for nine hours straight. The one time I tried, Smudge had expressed his displeasure by burning through the screen that covered his tank, burrowing into my laundry basket, and setting two weeks' worth of clothes ablaze. ~ Jim C. Hines

I had never read a book written by an African-American. I didn't know that black people could write books. I didn't know that blacks had done any great things. I was always conscious of my inferiority and I always remembered my place - until the Civil Rights Movement came to the town where I was born and grew up. ~ Endesha Ida Mae Holland

Our city is open to the world, and we have no periodical deportations in order to prevent people observing or finding out secret which might be of military advantage to the enemy. This is because we rely, not on secret weapons, but on our own real courage and loyalty. -146 ~ Thucydides

If I don't tell it all now, the story in the history books will always be imperfect and that would be wrong. ~ Christine Keeler

Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I have ever written. ~ G.K. Chesterton

A book is a blossoming of hope. ~ Antonio D'Alfonso

Pictures are windows to any lands,
But a book is a door that ready stands
To him who will open and go outside
Where the rivers and plains are free and wide.
Pictures are windows through which we look,
But the door of the world is just a a book.
---Annette Wynne as quoted in I Love Books:A Guide Through Bookland ~ Annette Wynne

I'd known since girlhood that I wanted to be a book editor. By high school, I'd pore over the acknowledgments section of novels I loved, daydreaming that someday a brilliant talent might see me as the person who 'made her book possible' or 'enhanced every page with editorial wisdom and insight.' Could I be the Maxwell Perkins to some future Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe? ~ Bridie Clark

Here is a writer possessing the greatest talent: that of fully inhabiting the lives of others. Spargo conjures up these two as no one has done before. Scott and Zelda become, in Spargo's remarkable novel, not people of history but of literature, and reminders of what we fight for, what we fail to win, and the beauty that abides between. A marvel of a book. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

It actually got me upset reading about adopted children. They become junkies or criminals or actors. I wanted to write a book from the children's point of view. ~ Michael Nyqvist

It was not an esthetic room. Though Frank Shallard might have come to admire pictures, great music, civilized furniture, he had been trained to regard them as worldly, and to content himself with art which 'presented a message,' to regard 'Les Miserables' as superior because the bishop was a kind man, and 'The Scarlet Letter' as a poor book because the heroine was sinful and the author didn't mind. ~ Sinclair Lewis

Don't you ever reread a book you liked?" Once the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them; there were plenty of people who didn't read for pleasure, let alone reread.
But Tom smiled and shook his head. "I used to, when I was a tyke. But how can you read a book you've already read when you know there are all those other ones out there?"
"An excellent argument, Mr. McLaury. I can only defend my position by saying that I use my old books as seasoning for the new ones - I sprinkle them lightly through my reading. ~ Emma Bull

Reading books exposes us to the consistency and uniqueness of being human. Book reading is an investigatory process. We read books in order to encounter the orchestrated words that describe emotions and observations that we too have experienced but are unable to glean the right alignment of words that fully embody the resonance that we seek. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Whedon: Studios will tell you: A woman cannot headline an action movie. After The Hunger Games they might stop telling you that a little bit. Whatever you think of the movie, it's done a great service. And after The Avengers, I think it's changing.
Johansson: A lot of the female superhero movies just suck really badly.
Whedon: The suck factor is not small.
Johansson: They are really not well made, and already you're fighting against the tide. There are a couple [female-driven action movies] that have worked-ish, don't you think?
Hemsworth: Angelina Jolie tends to do it pretty well, as the dominant female.
Jackson: They got to get The Pro to the screen!
Whedon: [Groaning] See, that is the problem. Sam is the problem!
Jackson: I love that book!
Whedon: [Reluctantly] The Pro is hilarious.
Jackson: The Pro's hilarious. [To the group] You ever see or hear of it?
Johansson: No, what's The Pro?
Jackson: It's [a comic book] about a hooker who gets super powers!
Johansson: [Pauses] That is exactly the problem right there.
Whedon: That's why I wasn't going to bring up The Pro!

(From an Entertainment Weekly interview) ~ Joss Whedon

But Dracula, the book, the myth, goes beyond metaphor in its intuitive rendering of an oncoming century filled with sexual horror: the throat as a female genital; sex and death as synonyms; killing as a sex act; slow dying as sensuality; men watching the slow dying, and the watching is sexual; mutilation of the female body as male heroism and adventure; callous, ruthless, predatory lust as the one-note meaning of sexual desire; intercourse itself needing blood, someone's, somewhere, to count as a sex act in a world excited by sado-masochism, bored by the dull thud-thud of the literal fuck. The new virginity is emerging, a twentieth century nightmare: no matter how much we have fucked, now matter with how many, now matter with what intensity or obsession or commitment or conviction (believing that sex is freedom) or passion or promiscuous abandon, no matter how often or where or when or how, we are virgins, innocents, knowing nothing, untouched, unless blood has been spilled – ours: not the blood of the first time; the blood of every time; this elegant blood-letting of sex a so-called freedom exercised in alienation, cruelty, and despair. Trivial and decadent; proud; foolish; liars; we are free. ~ Andrea Dworkin

One year ago you walked into the Bodleian Library and straight into my heart. As soon as that wicked mouth of yours smiled, the moment your eyes lightened with recognition even though we'd never met before, I knew that my life would never be the same. ~ Deborah Harkness

What I discovered is I don't like to repeat lead characters because one of the most pleasurable things in a book to me is learning about the lead. ~ Alan Furst

I have argued about the future of fiction with jaded novelists, far-seeing postmodernists, technologists, television critics. The argument that future generations will not know the pleasures of the novel has been a staple of book reviewing since at least 1960. ~ Russell Smith

What makes a good book? An author who knows how to leave out all the unnecessary bulk and delivers a lean story where not a single word is fluff. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

There are many themes found in the Book of Psalms that are generally not found in modern music. These include the fear of God, the righteousness and justice of God, the sovereignty of God, the judgement of God, the evil of sin, spiritual and physical warfare, the arch enemies of the Christian, the destruction of the wicked, the reality of hell, the blessedness of the church, the vicious attacks upon the church, the commandments of God, the dominion of David's son, and so on. Without the backdrop of these truths, the themes of love, mercy, faith, and salvation become largely meaningless. ~ Kevin Swanson