Book Challenge Quotes

Set your sights so high that even failure has in it an echo of glory. ~ Anonymous

Silas consumed only one food, and it was not bananas. ~ Neil Gaiman

The way you challenge Superman is by having things happen very, very quickly in different places and then asking, 'Who does he save first? What powers must he use to save each person or stop each disaster?' That's one of the ways you make him interesting beyond the thematic and moral issues that make Superman. ~ Jim Lee

A book is still atemporal. It is you, in silence, hearing voices in your head, unfolding at a time that has nothing to do with the timescale of reading. And for the hours that we retreat into this moratorium, with the last form of private and silent human activity that isn't considered pathological, we are outside of time. ~ Richard Powers

That's the problem with history, we like to think it's a book - that we can turn the page and move the fuck on. But history isn't the paper it's printed on. It's memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you. ~ Paul Beatty

This book is for those who would rather be haunted and driven mad than left behind. ~ Megan Hart

Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it. ~ Paul Auster

I put my heart and soul into my book - great story and awesome characters ... yet people are trying to pull me down. ~ Nick Simmons

We buy books, we go to gyms, we expend a lot of brain power on trying to hold back time, when we should be celebrating the miracle of being here in this world. ~ Paulo Coelho

I would love to write a book that opens people's eyes to the more interesting side. ~ John Gimlette

We put on a pot of tea, a necessity between these two writing friends. We
could no more imagine writing without this hot sustenance than we could
without pen and paper. We sat at the table to talk shop, sort through our
notes, and make plans for the book. Then we settled down in the sunroom,
giggling a little at the unexpected absurdity of our activity, editing
within arm's reach of each other, like toddlers at parallel play. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Throughout the ages, Christians have adapted John of Patmos's visions to changing times, reading their own social, political and religious conflicts into the cosmic war he so powerfully evokes. Yet his Book of Revelation appeals not only to fear and desires for vengeance but also to hope. ~ Elaine Pagels

We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism. ~ Benjamin Rush

I won't,' I say. 'I've never turned my back on you. And I'm not starting now. ~ Rainbow Rowell

On L. Ron Hubbard:

Now I must admit that "Battlefield Earth" is a book with something for everyone, all the way across the cultural scale from people who need doorstops to people who want to start bonfires. ~ David Langford

It's been said that every good parent wants only for his child to be happy. I want happiness for you, but so much more. I want you to not know the pain that awaits you. I want you to roar back at the things that scare you. I want for you a life that is not just happy, but meaningful.

But above all, I want you to embrace the love you find yourself drawn to, whatever that may be. I hope this book will show you that if you can find it in you to push past the fear of loving another person - if you can lean to live with the inevitable loss that comes with doing so - you will know a good and meaningful life. ~ Camille Pagan

Well just meeting J. K. Rowling was amazing because she created all this world. And all the fans, we all get so obsessed with it and then you met the one person who made it all up. It was just so amazing. And I was just so amazed that that she wrote this book and all of the films have happened. ~ Evanna Lynch

Tasers are a one-size-fits-all paranormal butt-kicking option. Mine's pink with
rhinestones. ~ Kiersten White

Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another. ~ Tryon Edwards

Andi Teran's first novel is vivid and fully realized, an entire universe expertly condensed into the pages you hold in your hands. Ana herself is a complicated delight, and by the end of the book I wanted to scoop her up into my arms. ~ Emma Straub

Maybe Heaven will be a library. Then I will be able to finish my to-read list. ~ Kellie Elmore

The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first. ~ Blaise Pascal

My idea of a good time is creating something and reading a good book. ~ Robin Gibb

I can tell that I shaped the book very deliberately, after a great deal of thought, and that I insisted this piece function as a prologue, but I find the word "intention," confusing ("trust the art," as D.H. Lawrence said, "not the artist"). These speculations are perhaps better responded to by text and reader, rather than author. ~ Laura Mullen

April ended and May came along, but May was even worse than April. In the deepening spring of May, I had no choice but to recognize the trembling of my heart. It usually happened as the sun was going down. In the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in the air, my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and wait for it to pass. And it would pass....but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind.
At those times I would write to Naoko. In my letters to her, I would describe only things that were touching or pleasant or beautiful: the fragrance of grasses, the caress of a spring breeze, the light of the moon, a movie I'd seen, a song I liked, a book that had moved me. I myself would be comforted by letters like this when I would reread what I had written. And I would feel that the world I lived in was a wonderful one. I wrote any number of letters like this, but from Naoko or Reiko I heart nothing. ~ Haruki Murakami

The problem is there are people in this country - maybe 10%, I don't know what the number, maybe 20% on a bad day - who want this President to have an asterisk next to his name in the history books, that he really wasn't President ... They can't stand the idea that he is President, and a piece of it is racism. Not that somebody in one racial group doesn't like somebody in another racial group. So what? It is the sense that the white race must rule. That's what racism is. And they can't stand the idea that a man who is not white is President. ~ Chris Matthews

I try to craft books that are fun, that are sort of subversively educational so kids learn but they don't really feel like they're being lectured to, and I want kids to always finish one of my books and think, "That was great, where's the next one?" ~ Rick Riordan

I reject the concept that comic books in movies are a genre. I have been fighting that for many years, with the powers-that-be in Hollywood. ~ Michael Uslan

You must take a year off, one of these days, before you're old and tired and weighed down by responsibility. Go away somewhere, and read. Read all the important books. Educate yourself, then you'll see the world in a different way. ~ Helon Habila

I feel like my figure is a challenge because I'm quite flat chested but I've got a booty so I've got to look for the right things. ~ Ellie Goulding

Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether. ~ Lionel Shriver

Never try to stop me again," he told her. It was a sensuous command of a lover and brought a chill of excitement in Mahgen's spirit, spreading throughout every inch of her body.
"No, Kathel," she said, "if that is my punishment, I shall always try and stop you. ~ Madison Thorne Grey

Henry James would probably roll over in his grave if he knew he was in any way responsible for this book. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

The big publishers want someone they can send on the Jewish book circuit, somebody the old ladies can see marrying their granddaughters. ~ Joshua Cohen

This was a really amazing part of your adventure, Hamlet. You're sure that, should you ever one day write a book about this story or perhaps a stage production, you'd DEFINITELY include this scene. Why, you'd have to be literally crazy to write a story where you journey to England, get attacked by pirates - actual pirates! - but then just sum up that whole adventure in a single sentence. Hah! That'd be the worst. Who puts a pirate-attack scene in their story and doesn't show it to the audience? Hopefully nobody, that's who! Even from a purely structural viewpoint, you've got to give the audience something awesome to make up for all the introspection you've been doing; that just seems pretty obvious is all. ~ Ryan North

Too bad you got so bogged down in books. You've got the spirit of a warrior. ~ Richelle Mead

I've often thought that my scruples about stealing books were the only thing that stood in the way of my being a really great scholar. ~ Malcolm Bradbury

Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one – Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennet, Scarlet O'Hara, Dill and Scout, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot – were more real than the real people I knew. ~ Anna Quindlen

In their capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without precedent in the cultural history of mankind. ~ Edsger Dijkstra