Bookshops Books Quotes

Read enough books. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I read to live. I read for life. ~ Will Schwalbe

It was around the time of the divorce that all traces of decency vanished, and his dream of being the next great Southern writer was replaced by his desire to be the next published writer. So he started writing these novels set in Small Town Georgia about folks with Good American Values who Fall in Love and then contract Life-Threatening Diseases and Die.
I'm serious.
And it totally depresses me, but the ladies eat it up. They love my father's books and they love his cable-knit sweaters and they love his bleachy smile and orangey tan. And they have turned him into a bestseller and a total dick.
Two of his books have been made into movies and three more are in production, which is where his real money comes from. Hollywood. And, somehow, this extra cash and pseudo-prestige have warped his brain into thinking that I should live in France. For a year.Alone.I don't understand why he couldn't send me to Australia or Ireland or anywhere else where English is the native language.The only French word I know is oui, which means "yes," and only recently did I learn it's spelled o-u-i and not w-e-e.
At least the people in my new school speak English.It was founded for pretentious Americans who don't like the company of their own children. I mean, really. Who sends their kid to boarding school? It's so Hogwarts. Only mine doesn't have cute boy wizards or magic candy or flying lessons.
Instead,I'm stuck with ninety-nine other students. There are twenty-five people ~ Stephanie Perkins

Good books are for consideration after, too. ~ Stephen King

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography,
but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility. ~ Katherine Paterson

What people tell me they take away from my books is that they can shape their lives, they can achieve their own dreams. And certainly that's what I want them to take away. ~ Tamora Pierce

Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world. ~ Jeanette Winterson

My mum used to tell me to never boil my cabbages twice, and I think it's artistically valid. While I do find myself on similar themes in my books, I try not to repeat myself, and that's something which is all too easy to do in series books. ~ Geraldine McCaughrean

Perhaps I was drawn to stories in which people found their true desires because I was a stranger to myself. ~ Alice Hoffman

Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said ... "As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells ... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower ... both strange and familiar. ~ Cornelia Funke

And so, we end with a beginning. Because every ending is really a beginning. All you need is a house that's old and creaky ... filled with lots of books ... a cat ... a person who's willing to try again ... someone who promises never to leave ... and most important of all ... a little Hope. ~ Kate Klise

I grew up with a very romantic, idealized vision of New York, probably because of all the books I read and the movies I watched. ~ Adrian Tomine

the books shot off the shelf like academic projectile puke. ~ Leigh Evans

Of course, people say maybe there are some self-published books out there that shouldn't be out there. Well, it's the same with conventional publishing. ~ Patti Davis

From history books you should at best believe just the punctuation. The rest is uncertain, incomplete, distorted, exaggerated or even fabricated. ~ A.J. Beirens

One of the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that if you like the book, you'll generally like the person. It doesn't always work in reverse - there are huge numbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books. ~ Meg Rosoff

All books are merely delayed dust. ~ George Elliott Clarke

I still occasionally need to struggle but I now fear it less. The weapons I fight it with are also my consolations: books, music, food, wine, nature. ~ P.D. James

By cultivating an interest in a few good books which contain the result of the toil or the quintessence of the genius of some of the most gifted thinkers of the world, we need not live on the marsh and in the mists. The slopes and ridges invite us. ~ Thomas Starr King

I've got lots of books sitting here that have never been published because nobody could make any marketing sense of them. ~ Whitley Strieber

Life is a game where nobody wins. ..
except for those who believe and do good deeds. . . (Qur'an 103:3)."

via > book> Notes from Prison ― Alija Izetbegovic, the first President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992) and the author of several books, most notably " Islam Between East and West " and " Islamic Declaration ". ~ Alija Izetbegovic

History will be kind to me for I have written it. Winston Churchill ~ Ron Mayes

I like each of my books to be different. Once I've done something I like to move on and push myself to learn new things and expand the limits of poetic form. ~ Campbell McGrath

I write because I know I am only one to control the world I created in my books. ~ Anamika Mishra

If you're going to read five books, three should be issues and two for fun. ~ Eoin Colfer

I lost Ike,' Aunt Josephine said, 'and I lost Lake Lachrymose. I mean, I didn't really lose it, of course. It's still down in the valley. But I grew up on its shores. I used to swim in it every day. I know which beaches were sandy and which were rocky. I knew all the islands in the middle of its waters and all the caves alongside it's shore. Lake Lachrymose felt like a friend to me. But when it took poor Ike away from me I was too afraid to go near it anymore. I stopped swimming in it. I never went to the beach again. I even put away all my books about it. The only way I can bear to look at it is from the Wide Window in the Library. ~ Lemony Snicket

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

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate. I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship. I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things. Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone, and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free ~ Jorge Luis Borges

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

I do the same with my books ... Nothing like a good argument in the margins with someone who's already said all they have to say on the subject. ~ Betsy Cornwell

Opening the book, i inhaled. the smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it. ~ Diane Setterfield

There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films. ~ Christopher Hampton

Here is how I propose to end book-banning in this country once and for all: Every candidate for school committee should be hooked up to a lie detector and asked this question: "Have you read a book from start to finish since high school?" or "Did you even read a book from start to finish in high school?"

If the truthful answer is "no," then the candidate should be told politely that he cannot get on the school committee and blow off his big bazoo about how books make children crazy.

Whenever ideas are squashed in this country, literate lovers of the American experiment write careful and intricate explanations of why all ideas must be allowed to live. It is time for them to realize that they are attempting to explain America at its bravest and most optimistic to orangutans.

From now on, I intend to limit my discourse with dimwitted Savonarolas to this advice: "Have somebody read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution out loud to you, you God damned fool!"

Well--the American Civil Liberties Union or somebody like that will come to the scene of trouble, as they always do. They will explain what is in the Constitution, and to whom it applies.

They will win.

And there will be millions who are bewildered and heartbroken by the legal victory, who think some things should never be said--especially about religion.

They are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hi ho. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Thousands and thousands of books are thrown on the market every year
presenting some new variant of the personal romance, some tale of the vacillations
of the melancholic or the career of the ambitious. The heroine of Proust requires
several finely-wrought pages in order to feel that she does not feel anything. It
would seem that one might, at least with equal justice, demand attention to a
series of collective historic dramas which lifted hundreds of millions of human
beings out of nonexistence, transforming the character of nations and intruding
forever into the life of all mankind. ~ Leon Trotsky

Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude that has never again left me.
- Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp ~ Albert Einstein

Basically, I tend to see the world differently to other people, and I write books and stories to alter the imagination of people so that they also see the world in a different way. ~ Ian Watson

You're not going to see any former suitors in Forest Crest, are you?"
An impish twinkle appeared in her eyes. "No, Mr. Morgan, I was never courted by any of the village lads."
"Why not? What in God's name is the matter with all of them?"
"I was never receptive to their advances," Victoria said, settling herself more comfortably on his lap. "I was absorbed in taking care of Father, and reading books, and..." Tenderly she laid her head on his shoulder. "I suppose I was waiting for you," she said, and felt his arms tighten until he nearly crushed her. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Great work doesn't make me jealous; it makes me want to work. ~ Glen Hirshberg

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. ~ Sissy Spacek

The Book of Books Within this ample volume lies The mystery of mysteries. Happiest they of human race To whom their God has given grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch, to force the way; But better had they ne'er been born That read to doubt or read to scorn. ~ Walter Scott

No matter how strong you are, you cannot hold open the jaws of a great-white shark with your bare hands ... that can do your brain. ~ Ivan Stoikov

There is no advice, counselling, books that can make any marriage to work unless the male and female involved are ready to change. Change is the only way to make a progress and if you don't change you will remain in chase. Change is the proof that you are growing, if you are not changing, you are not growing. ~ Patience Johnson

The would-be Sufi needs guidance precisely because books, texts, while telling you what is needed, do not tell you when. ~ Idries Shah

I really love doing nothing. I really love just being at home and taking a couple of days, you know, doing nothing. You know what I mean? Just getting up, being around the house, going outside the back yard, coming back in; I really like to do nothing because I travel a lot. There's a lot of travelling. There's a lot of on the phone all the time. There's a lot of looking at papers and reading things and so you don't want to read magazines and you don't want to do anything; you don't want to read books, you just want to just kind of shut down a little bit. ~ Jennifer Lopez

The only pressure I feel is to write good books. And to not replicate the previous book. Whether you have a thousand readers or a million readers it doesn't change the pressure. I never feel tempted to give the reader what I think the reader wants. ~ Jo Nesbo

I thought about Kizuki. "So you finally made Naoko yours," I heard myself telling him. Oh, well, she was yours to begin with. Now maybe, she's where she belongs. But in this world, in this imperfect world of the living, I did the best I could for Naoko. ~ Haruki Murakami