Books About Books Quotes

To librarians, booksellers, and collectors there is nothing limited in the subject of books about books. ~ Leona Rostenberg

Books about books are a rare species, special tomes for writers and book lovers. More than an affirmation of taste, a book about books is often a spirited celebration and sincere investigation. Quickly coveted, it remains on that particular shelf, guarded and revered, and eventually slips out of print. What good company we will keep then, among a library lost, only momentarily invisible, waiting patiently to be found. ~ Tom Cardamone

People read for a multiplicity of reasons. Nearly forty years in, I can tell you why I inhale books like oxygen: I'm grateful for my one life, but I'd prefer to live a thousand --and my favorite books allow me to experience more on the page than I ever could in my actual life. ~ Anne Bogel

We were bleeding information from the nose and ears, though dazed and disoriented was not how I experienced it. Most of the time, I felt like I was three years old, high on chocolate cake and social networks, constantly wired, ingesting information and news about information, books and books about books, data and metadata - I was, in other words, overstimulated yet gluttonous for more. ~ Marilyn Johnson

don't rush though: your eyes need time to taste. your soul needs room to bloom. ~ Kwame Alexander

Electronic books are ideal for people who value the information contained in them, or who have vision problems, or who like to read on the subway, or who do not want other people to see how they are amusing themselves, or who have storage and clutter issues, but they are useless for people who are engaged in an intense, lifelong love affair with books. Books that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on. ~ Joe Queenan

The trouble with reading is it goes to your head. Read too many books and you get savvy. You begin to think you know which kind of story you're in. Then some stupid git with a cosmic quill fucks you over. ~ A.J. Hackwith

I was in college when I first saw You've Got Mail, and I loved Kathleen Kelly instantly. I was mostly past my wistful gade-school days of wishing myself into every novel I read, but I was alarmingly struck by how she echoed my old fear of settling for my real life, musing in one scene, "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Her impetus was this: once she'd read a story about a butterfly in a subway train, and then...she saw one! The film shows Kathleen rattling along on the train, an open book in her lap, when a butterfly suddenly flits into her field of vision. You can see her visceral delight. That thing she'd only read about had come true.

Yet she wondered if her experience was cheapened because she'd read it before she lived it, and my twenty-year-old self wondered right along with her. But I'm not the girl--or the reader--I was then, and I now know the times when reading cheapens anything are few and far between. I've seen how our on -the-page experiences set the stage for our actual lives. Our books frame the scenes for us so we can better understand and experience what's happening when it happens to us-- ~ Anne Bogel

The fun one can have writing books about books is limitless, to be honest. ~ Jasper Fforde

With apologies to Kathleen Kelly, what I've come to learn is this: if my real life reminds me of something I read in a book , I'm reading well -- and I'm probably living well, too. ~ Anne Bogel

You are moving in the opposite direction when your life is about survival only ~ Sunday Adelaja

We're taught to talk about the world as a world of as states conceived as unified, coherent entities. If you study international relations (IR) theory, there's what's called "realist" IR theory, which says there is an anarchic world of states and states pursue their "national interest." It's in large part mythology. There are a few common interests, like we don't want to be destroyed. But, for the most part, people within a nation have very different interests. The interests of the CEO of General Electric and the janitor who cleans his floor are not the same. ~ Noam Chomsky

Tell the truth about your wound, and then you will get a truthful picture of the remedy to apply to it. Don't pack whatever is easiest or most available into the emptiness. Hold out for the right medicine. You will recognize it because it makes your life stronger rather than weaker. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

At that moment, in the temple of her lovers' tangled limbs, Lea felt the presence of the Divine close by, immanent and imminent - everywhere and everywhen - and it was a sublime feeling, one that made her feel infinitely powerful and infinitely small, both at the same time.

A good fuck can make even an agnostic see God - a fact that explained Lea's parents' fascination with Tantra, something about which Lea thought as little as possible. ~ K.D. West

Marilla, look at that big star over Mr. Harrison's maple grove, with all that hold hush of silvery sky about it. I gives me a feeling that is like a prayer. After all, when one can see stars and skies like that, little disappointments and accidents can't matter so much, can they? ~ L.M. Montgomery

Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it.
So I don't guffaw at the woman who visits her husband's grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It's not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she's talking to, that's all right.
That's not what this is about. This is about humans being human. ~ Carl Sagan

When we love others, we naturally want to talk about them, we want to show them off, like emotional trophies. We invest them with a power to do to others what they do to us; a vain hope, as the lovers of others are rarely of much interest to us. But we listen in patience, as friends must, and as Isabel now did, refraining from comment, other than to encourage the release of the story and the attendant confession of human frailty and hope. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Any good thing will be ruined by talking negatively about it; similarly bad thing will improve by speaking positive about it. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Humans are born, small, weak and helpless. That's why we have family. And the elders of the family are the honoured guardians of our country's history. Unfortunately, in America, we, you know, lock those elders away out of view in nursing homes and go about our little lives. It's a great national shame and an irredeemable tragedy. Oh well. ~ Christopher Titus

Whatcha got there?" I asked, looking at the crumpled piece of paper in his hands. As we walked through the quiet halls, he folded it into a small square and tucked it into his back pocket. He turned to look at me, and then his grin grew wider. "It's an article." "About what?" "Nothing special. Just a Mandy Parker original." "It's ~ Tracie Puckett

It's an essay that Sigmund Freud wrote about E.T.A. Hoffman's short story called "The Sandman" where someone mistakes an inanimate object for a living, breathing human being. And one of the things that Sigmund Freud really felt was that in modern life people assign qualities to objects around them that may not exist there whatsoever. ~ DJ Spooky

Charm is from the Latin carmen: to sing. By "charm," I mean sing well enough to hold the reader in thrall. Whatever people like about you in the world will manifest itself on the page. What drives them crazy will keep you humble. You'll need both sides of yourself - the beautiful and the beastly - to hold a reader's attention. ~ Mary Karr

If she could live through that, from now on, she could live through anything - even love. But maybe instead of happily ever after--or maybe in addition to it--this time it would be everything. Everything ever after. And when they asked her if she was happy, this time she'd answer, "Among other things."
The way Suzanne saw it was that most things were ultimately manageable if you went at them the right way, even if they started out all wrong and hopeless and wrapped so tight around you that you just can't breathe. Even the things you never thought you could get over or get through, those hurts you knew would never heal, those visions that troubled your sleep….All that eventually quieted and ceased to pull at you, if you wanted it to badly enough, if you were willing to outlast your difficulties. ~ Carrie Fisher

There will no longer be so many pleasant things to look at if responsible people do not do something about the unpleasant ones. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I basically have nothing to offer to others. If you think about it, I don't even have anything to offer myself. ~ Haruki Murakami

On a studio film, you don't have to worry about running out of film or messing up your costumes; you have five other sets of it. Studio films make you the most comfortable so you can just act. ~ Sung Kang

Although, as you well know, dictionary sales to laymen have been waning for a long time. As books have gone out of print and we've moved from reading to "consuming data streams," "texting" rather than writing - as Memes have become king - the average consumer has had much less need for real meanings. And Synchronic ~ Alena Graedon

People were so naive about plants, Ellie thought. They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall. It never occurred to them that plants were actually living things, busily performing all the living functions of respiration, ingestion, excretion, reproduction
and defense. ~ Michael Crichton

You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. ~ Lewis Carroll

If someone like Batsheva wanted to be Orthodox, there was surely something to it. Not that she doubted it (or at least she didn't ever really and truly doubt it), but it was nice to have outside validation. Whenever Mrs. Levy heard about people who left Orthodoxy, she felt a pang of insecurity. Did they know something she didn't? Were they smarter than she was? Did they now look at Orthodox Jews as silly, backward, superstitious? But with Batsheva choosing it on her own, she could breathe a little easier. ~ Tova Mirvis

When I look at you, I still see the son I love more than my own life. But I also see a man who has become so far removed from what matters that his perception is skewed. Family is real, son. A home to settle into - that's real. People who love you and care about you. You've had a phenomenal career, and I'm proud of you. But it's time to stop basing your worth on championships and endorsement deals. You can't buy happiness. You can't earn it. God isn't counting all the deals you're racking up - and neither is your family." He lifted his brow. "And neither is Lucy. For the first time someone's looking at the person inside - and you have to decide if you're going to let her in and be the man she needs you to be." His father turned his head toward a family picture on the mantel. "It's a risk. But one I've never regretted. ~ Jenny B. Jones

The true story is that black people need to tell their history. Very few films are made by black people about slavery. That itself is a crime because slavery is a very important historical event that has held our people hostage. Forget white people's role in it. In the end what's important is black people remain and live with the scars and psychological issues. ~ Haile Gerima

To see how boring you really are, write a book about soap and cults, and the profits you make will be your only means of subsistence. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I received my training at an art academy, so what I produce is art. That's what is artistic about my photographs. ~ Thomas Ruff

Many of our own people here in this country do not ask about computers, telephones and television sets. They ask - when will we get a road to our village. ~ Thabo Mbeki

The hunger will give you everything and it will take from you, everything. It will cost you your life, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. But knowing this, of course, is what ultimately sets you free. ~ Hugh MacLeod

You see, when you were little they kept sending me snap–shots of you, first as a baby and then as a child in socks playing on the beach with a pail and shovel, and then suddenly as a wistful little girl with wondering, pure eyes - and I used to build dreams about you. A man has to have something living to cling to. I think, Lois, it was your little white soul I tried to keep near me - even when life was at its loudest and every intellectual idea of God seemed the sheerest mockery, and desire and love and a million things came up to me and said: 'Look here at me! See, I'm Life. You're turning your back on it!' All the way through that shadow, Lois, I could always see your baby soul flitting on ahead of me, very frail and clear and wonderful. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

I believe that the most important thing for a couple of any sort, to realize in their relationship with each other (and please allow me to share this with you), is that neither are a limited source. You see, the idea of the soul is that it is eternal and that it continually receives from an Eternal Source. So the idea in any relationship is never really what you can get from it; but the idea is what you can give to the other, what you can put into it. Withdrawing from eternity - and depositing into the physical realm. Of course, as you both give, you are also both receiving from one another, thus a beautiful relationship is formed and maintained. It's that certain flow that needs to be encouraged and allowed. I say "allowed" because it's natural, however, it's usually not "allowed" because our human faculties are taught and bombarded by stupid ideas in magazines that relationships are all about what one can get from it; it's never about giving! So in a nutshell, the idea is to give because you know that you are receiving from an Everlasting Source, but to also remain graceful and eager enough to also receive gratefully from the other. And this is how eternal relationships are born. We are all conduits of eternity and we happen to meet another conduit whom we feel we belong with, then we share what we receive from eternity and receive what the other has to share. ~ C. JoyBell C.

I had never done anything with blue screen before, or prosthetics, or anything like that. Lord of the Rings was like stepping into a videogame for me. It was another world completely. But, to be honest, I basically did it so that I could have the ears. I thought they would really work with my bare head.Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it. ~ Cate Blanchett

I wonder if husbands know as much about their wives as they think they do. If I had a husband, I should hate him to bring home orphans without consulting me first. ~ Agatha Christie

When you're writing plays, it's possible to believe you don't have any real world skill. When you're adapting, it is really all about the mechanics, so you feel closer to, I don't know, an accountant or someone who has a body of information. It's not all about temperament. ~ Richard Greenberg

One of the great things about the Fifties is there are so many secrets - people who've come back from the war and done these terrible things that they don't want to think about, or can't say what they did because they signed the Official Secrets Act. ~ Sara Sheridan

Humanity is about raising up each other for good. ~ Zaman Ali

I hate to admit this, but some days hearing about other people's problems actually cheers me up. ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Maize is just another word for white corn, and by the end of this story, you won't believe how much you know about corn. ~ William Kamkwamba

To concentrate intensely for 4 and a half hours, that's too hard for me. Too tiring. I concentrate 'lo maximo' on the 'golpe,' the stroke, but between strokes I'm interacting with the crowd or laughing with my caddie, talking about the spectators, the cute girls. ~ Sergio Garcia

Suffering, though, can be nothing more than a sad and sorry thing without the presence on the part of the sufferer of a graceful heart, an accepting and open heart, a heart that holds no malice toward the inflictors of his or suffering This is a difficult concept to understand, and it is even more difficult to internalize, but it has everything to do with the way of nonviolence. We are talking about love here....This is a broader, deeper, more all-encompassing love. It is a love that acepts and embraces the hateful and the hurtful. It is a love that recognizes the spark of the divine in each of us, even in those who would raise their hand against us, those we might call our enemy. ~ John Lewis

Lets stop worrying about future and lets start enjoying the present. ~ Nadair Desmar

Being on stage was all about the palpable energy of a rapt audience hopefully buying into a life onstage. The immediate connection with the audience was the best part for me. The camera is not as fun, but your work is preserved forever. There's immortality to it. ~ David Walton

Sugar, I cannot express to you how much the press does not give a fuck about who started what," Ellen says. "As your mother, I can appreciate that maybe this isn't your fault, but as the president, all I want is to have the CIA fake your death and ride the dead-kid sympathy into a second term. ~ Casey McQuiston

Television and film are such streamlined story mediums. You can't really meander about, whereas a novel is an interior experience. ~ Steven Bochco