Book Business Quotes

There is no better teacher than history in determining the future... There are answers worth billions of dollars in 30$ history book. ~ Charles T. Munger

Books. Sure. But mostly I build interest. Attention. Allure. A book is just packaging, just a container. This is what I've realized. The mistake people in the book business make is they think their job is to build good containers. Saying you're in the book business is like a winemaker saying he's in the bottle business. What we're actually building is interest. A book is simply one shape that interest can take when we scale and leverage it. ~ Nathan Hill

I'm not in the speech making business. I'm not in the seminar business. I'm not in the writing book business. I'm in the changing lives business. ~ Zig Ziglar

The bookseller handed me the book and winked.
"Have a good look at it, little dumpling. I don't want you coming back to me saying I've switched it, eh?"

"I trust you," I said.

"Stuff and nonsense. The last guy who said that to me (a tourist who was convinced that Hemingway had invented the fabada stew during the San Fermín bull run) bought a copy of Hamlet signed by Shakespeare in ballpoint, imagine that. So keep your eyes peeled. In the book business, you can't even trust the index. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A doctor is advertised by the bodies he cures. My business is advertised by the minds I stimulate. And let me tell you that the book business is different from other trades. People don't know they want books. I can see just by looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of books but you are blissfully unaware of it! ~ Christopher Morley

In business, if you want to make money, you have to spend money. If you want to have a result, you have to make an investment. ~ Sophie Kinsella

I consider Apple to be very closed. Let's say you have a book business, and you are charging 5 to 7 percent gross margins; you can't exist in an Apple world because they want 30 percent, and they don't care that you only have 7 percent to play with. ~ Gabe Newell

Everyone does a style book, and I wanted to write a business book for people that didn't think they would like a business book. ~ Sophia Amoruso

All my scripts have artistic backgrounds
ballet, concert hall, opera
and all the suspects and corpses are cultured, maybe I'll do one about the rare book business in your honor, do you want to be the murderer or the corpse? ~ Helene Hanff

I do not believe in God. I have no religion. But this to me is as close to a church as I have known in this life. It is a holy place. With bookstores like this, I feel confident in saying that there will be a book business for a very long time. ~ Gabrielle Zevin

Amazon isn't happening to the book business," he likes to say to authors and journalists. "The future is happening to the book business.") ~ Brad Stone

There may be little room for the display of this supreme qualification in the retail book business, but there is room for some. Be enterprising. Get good people about you. Make your shop windows and your shops attractive. The fact that so many young men and women enter the teaching profession shows that there are still some people willing to scrape along on comparatively little money for the pleasure of following an occupation in which they delight. It is as true to-day as it was in Chaucer's time that there is a class of men who "gladly learn and gladly teach," and our college trustees and overseers and rich alumni take advantage of this and expect them to live on wages which an expert chauffeur would regard as insufficient. Any bookshop worthy of survival can offer inducements at least as great as the average school or college. Under pleasant conditions you will meet pleasant people, for the most part, whom you can teach and form whom you may learn something. ~ A. Edward Newton

No matter how good it is, your book will not sell itself. ~ Elinor Florence

Someone told me something recently about Sarah Palin, someone I trusted in the book business. They said, "I worked with Palin. She did an event at my bookstore, and she was really, really nice, and even more beautiful in person." I didn't want to hear that. I wanted to hear that she was awful and hideous-looking. But I thought, I have to listen to that. I have to hear that. I don't want to be the one who is going to deny anything complimentary said about somebody just because I disagree with that person. ~ David Sedaris

On the whole, and this comment can get me in a lot of trouble, I find that retailers in the comic book business are not business people. They're fans who've gotten themselves shops. ~ Rob Walton

Librarians in America do something like a couple of billion dollars worth of book business every year. ~ Michael Moore

As we have seen again and again, when Amazon doesn't get the economic conditions from suppliers that it seeks, it simply goes its own way. In the book business, that has meant publishing its own titles under the various Kindle imprints. Now it's making diapers. ~ Brad Stone

I did not want to write just another business book. ~ Peter Thiel

I wanted a bookstore because the book business is the business of life. ~ George Whitman

Bezos ultimately concluded that if Amazon was to continue to thrive as a bookseller in a new digital age, it must own the e-book business in the same way that Apple controlled the music business. "It is far better to cannibalize yourself than have someone else do it," said Diego Piacentini ~ Brad Stone

McLuhanism and the media have broken the back of the book business; they've freed people from the shame of not reading. They've rationalized becoming stupid and watching television. ~ Pauline Kael

It wasn't a case of me sitting down and thinking, right then, what shall I do with my life? Airline pilot? Plumber? Guitar manufacturer? Writer ... yeah, writer. I've always loved writing, from a very early age
I guess I was writing my first stories when I was still in single digits. It progressed, and the love of writing grew in my mind and is still growing. Doing it full-time, there are different stresses and tensions, and the business side of it comes to the fore sometimes. But I still love it, and I'm always thankful that I can do what I do and make a living from it. ~ Tim Lebbon

I watch James's face. His expression is an open book to me, because I took the time to learn the language many years ago. ~ Cristin Terrill

In reading, in literature and poetry, I found an artistic freedom that I didn't see at Woolworth's. I would read everything from Shakespeare to science fiction ... sometimes a book a day. ~ Frederick Lenz

I would like to get nominated for a Grammy, but I don't set out to do that anymore, though, 'cause I never felt like I got my just due in the business, period anyway. ~ Ginuwine

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain. ~ Martin Luther

If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business. ~ Plutarch

Some books about the Holocaust are more difficult to read than others. Some books about the Holocaust are nearly impossible to read. Not because one does not understand the language and concepts in the books, not because they are gory or graphic, but because such books are confrontational. They compel us to "think again," or to think for the first time, about issues and questions we might rather avoid.

Gabriel Wilensky's book, Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Antisemitism Paved the Road to the Holocaust is one book I found difficult, almost impossible to read. Why? Because I had to confront the terrible underside of Christian theology, an underside that contributed in no small part to the beliefs and attitudes too many Christians – Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox – had imbibed throughout centuries of anti-Jewish preaching and teaching that "paved the road to the Holocaust."

I cannot say that I "liked" Gabriel Wilensky's book, Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Antisemitism Paved the Road to the Holocaust. I didn't, but I can say it was instructive and forced me to think again about that Jew from Nazareth, Jesus, and about his message of universal love and service – "What you do for the least of my brothers [and sisters], you do for me" (Matthew 25: 40).

As Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, the Holocaust did not begin with Auschwitz. The Holocaust began with words. And too many of those hate-filled words had their origin in th ~ Carol Rittner

No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive. ~ Chris Bohjalian

Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in heaven. To succeed in this world, you have to be known to people. ~ Sonia Sotomayor

All the authors who've ultimately published Louder Than Words memoirs have been very happy to be chosen and excited about the possibility of having their memoir published. Even though these books deal with serious, often painful, issues, in all cases the authors felt as though writing their story would be an empowering and healing experience. ~ Deborah Reber

If the book is second-hand, I leave all its markings intact, the spoor of previous readers, fellow-travellers who have recorded their passage by means of scribbled comments, a name on the fly-leaf, a bus ticket to mark a certain page. ~ Alberto Manguel

His ship sank. They were all on his side. ~ Ljupka Cvetanova

As may be seen, there is only one sensible piece of advice to give to those who find themselves having to talk to an author about one of his books without having read it: praise it without going into detail. An author does not expect a summary or a rational analysis of his book and would even prefer you not to attempt such a thing. He expects only that, while maintaining the greatest possible degree of ambiguity, you will tell him you like what he wrote. ~ Pierre Bayard

The Gadianton Robbers from the Book of Mormon are loose among us. The King-men, and women, are running our government. And, worst of all, we are blindly electing them, or appointing them so they can continue to destroy the things we cherish most. ~ John Andreas Widtsoe

Our books still do not require batteries. But I am no fool. It is a slender advantage. ~ Robin Sloan

Let us give thanks to God above,
Thanks for expressions of His love,
Seen in the book of nature, grand
Taught by His love on every hand.

Let us be thankful in our hearts,
Thankful for all the truth imparts,
For the religion of our Lord,
All that is taught us in His word.

Let us be thankful for a land,
That will for such religion stand;
One that protects it by the law,
One that before it stands in awe.

Thankful for all things let us be,
Though there be woes and misery;
Lessons they bring us for our good-
Later 'twill all be understood.

Thankful for peace o'er land and sea,
Thankful for signs of liberty,
Thankful for homes, for life and health,
Pleasure and plenty, fame and wealth.

Thankful for friends and loved ones, too,
Thankful for all things, good and true,
Thankful for harvest in the fall,
Thankful to Him who gave it all. ~ Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer

A reckoning is coming on the state of the internet journalism, because right now, the way it's set up, there is so much room for libel to squeak through that you're going to see ... they're going to rewrite the rule book on journalism very soon. They have to, because the bloggers are getting away with so much rumor-mongering about public officials and even private figures because they don't have editors and they don't have fact checkers and they don't have lawyers. There is going to be a price to pay somewhere down the line. ~ Rod Lurie

In fact, I think every book I've written has been inspired by a real event. ~ Laura Lippman

Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-Thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books. ~ John Updike

I like to joke that you usually write more books before death than after death, so that's why I'm doing it. But really, I remain engaged with ideas. There are so many things happening that turn me on and I just want to examine them. ~ T.C. Boyle

I think it is far more important to save one square mile of wilderness, anywhere, by any means, than to produce another book on the subject. ~ Edward Abbey

I am not embarrassed to be a banker. I am not embarrassed to be in business. ~ Jamie Dimon

Fairy-child, if only you should take my hand, I would show you things beyond your wildest dreams." My expression makes him laugh. "What's that from?"

"Some book I read."

"I should have known." I pause. "Did she follow?"

"How could she resist? Of course, she ended up devoured. ~ Kristen Hubbard

Read day and night, devour books - these sleeping pills - not to know but to forget! Through books you can retrace your way back to the origins of spleen, discarding history and its illusions. ~ Emil Cioran

True individualists are always at odds with the universe. Set adrift by their peculiar tastes and interests, they spend their lives searching for kindred spirits and a compatible mate. They are hopelessly out of step with the business world and its trivial urgencies. Their priorities are not the priorities of their neighbors. They are unique; therefore they are alone. ~ Rick Bayan

Television is a dirty business. To survive in it you have to be part weasel, part python, and part wolf. To succeed in it, you have to be 99.9 percent great white shark. The capacity for barefaced lying also comes in handy, particularly if you are freelance. ~ Matt Dickinson

I'd keep your beauty timeless.
like a flower pressed in a book, yes
I wouldn't let it fade
Folded in the chapters of my mind ~ Richard L. Ratliff

He shut the door softly behind him, and I threw a pillow at it just to prove a point. I stewed for an hour until I was finally able to drift off again, this time with a smile on my face as I imagined using the Scarf to dangle Ren in front of the kraken, but then in my dream I became the kraken and wrapped my tentacles around him, pulled him into my eternal purple embrace, and stole away with him to a murky cavern in the depths of the ocean.
Tigers Voyage (Book 3)
Pg. 404 ~ Colleen Houck

Instead of talking at each other about the non-business-related contact, talk to each other about your concerns about marriage. Listen a lot, too. ~ Carolyn Hax

In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and complete a sale. ~ Mark Cuban

It is a matter of life and death for us; for the lead we gain by day on ships and railways is lost each night. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

It is my lady! *sighs* o, it is my love! o, that she knew she were! she speaks, yet she sais nothing. what of that? her eye discourses; i will answer it. i am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks; two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. ~ William Shakespeare

Jews are known for many things, but strength, swiftness, and agility are not among them. There is one trait, as controversial as it is familiar, for which Jews are above all known, and that is shrewdness in business. ~ Steven Pinker

Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

My business was to declare myself a scoundrel, and whether I did it with a bow or a bluster was of little importance. ~ Jane Austen

I'm always depressed when a book ends, because those are my friends for however long the book takes to write. Since I spend so many hours with these fictional people, I sometimes see them more than my real friends. And then they're gone, and we'll never be together like that again. ~ Seanan McGuire

Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it's a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They're going to read one chapter and say, 'I can't wait to get back to the other guy.' ~ Mitch Albom

If you're looking to become an entrepreneur then don't waste your time going to university or business school - just get on and do it. ~ Richard Branson

He thought of how when you went out and listened to what people said, you heard all kinds of things, people washing their dirty linen in public, talking about friends and business and,gash, and it made him think how the world must be, at every minute, so full of people fighting, and jazzing, and dying, and working, and losing jobs, and it was a funny world, all right, full of funny people, millions of them. And he was only one out of all these millions of people, and they were all trying to get along, and many of them had gotten farther than he. ~ James T. Farrell