Choosing Books Quotes

Although I enjoy digging through the library to help students find books, my aim is to help them develop self-confidence in choosing books for themselves. ~ Donalyn Miller

There is a world of science necessary in choosing books. I have known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel, or the last light book in fashion. One might as well take a rose-draught for the plague! Light reading does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am told that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study a science that was new to him. Ah! Goethe was a physician who knew what he was about. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

You have to read a book at the right time for you, and I am sure this cannot be insisted on too often, for it is the key to the enjoyment of literature. ~ Doris Lessing

Demon," the woman spat onto the road. "Well, girl, thank you. I grant no one's wishes and so you mark me 'demon.' I grant no wishes and I do as I see fit to be done. I will not answer to you, girl, nor to any one of yours, but I will always look. I am not the one who turns away. ~ Tamara Rendell

Advertising is very simple in a lot of ways. Advertisers go where the users go, and users are choosing to spend a lot more time online. ~ Susan Wojcicki

Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team. ~ Yann Martel

Khalif (Caliph) Al-Ma'mun's period of rule (813 - 833 C.E.) may be considered the 'golden age' of science and learning. He had always been devoted to books and to learned pursuits. His brilliant mind was interested in every form of intellectual activity. Not only poetry but also philosophy, theology, astronomy, medicine and law all occupied his time. ~ John Bagot Glubb

We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. ~ Ed Wood

Most of what we got was crockery: from exotic crystal bowls to ceramic anomalies. Then, a cross-section of rugs- from a beautiful Kashmiri original to a memorable one with printed dragons and utterly incomprehensible hieroglyphics. Dibyendu (typically) gave us a scrabble set and Runai Maashi: that rocking chair. Yuppie work friends, trying to be unique and aesthetically offbeat, went for wind-chimes but there were really far too many of them by the end. We also got a fantastic number of white and off-white kurtas, jamdani sarees with complementary blouses, no less than nine suitcases, suit pieces, imported condoms, bed-sheets, bed-covers, coffee makers, coffee tables, coffee-table books, poetry books, used gifts (paintings of sunsets and other disasters), three nights and four days in Darjeeling, along with several variations of Durga, Ganesh and all the usual suspects in ivory, china, terracotta, papier-mâché, and what have you. Someone gave us a calendar that looking back, I think, was laudably sardonic. Others gave us money, in various denominations: from eleven to five hundred and one. And in one envelope, came a letter for her that she read in tears in the bathroom.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') ~ Kunal Sen

I am a huge fan of world-building. I love doing it in my own books, and I love reading it done well. ~ Sarah Monette

Books - books - books," said Helen, in her absent-minded way. "More new books - I wonder what you find in them ... ~ Virginia Woolf

My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. There was a time when each man had a name of his own to distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He took the light of the gods and brought it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name is Prometheus. ~ Ayn Rand

When I first met my husband, he had a very good job - company car, pension plan, grudging respect from his staff - the lot. I, on the other hand, was badly paid and devoid of ambition. Then I had a couple of books published and confounded all expectations by starting to earn more than he did. ~ Marian Keyes

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history, for instance, because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books. ~ Jon Meacham

M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: "He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so much. He said, 'Not by being such a handsome young man as you. I wasn't in demand, and instead of going out I studied and learned'. ~ Celeste Albaret

Choosing an unconventional career path - I am not a traditional Egyptologist by any means. I found what I love, and I have stuck with it. ~ Sarah Parcak

I'd open the door in the morning and the slightly sweet smell of second hand books would greet me. For years I wondered just what that smell was. In the end I decided it was the smell of human thought embedded in paper. ~ Heather Rose

When I wrote the first Betsy book, 'Undead and Unwed,' I had no idea, none, that it would be a career-defining, genre-defining book, the first of over a dozen in the series, the first of over 70 published books, the first on my road to the best-seller list, the first on my road to being published in 15 countries. ~ MaryJanice Davidson

Human beings cannot probe the mind of God by asking themselves what they would do if they were God. They are men and not God. And if they are virtuous men, they will wait for God to reveal himself under conditions of his own choosing. ~ Edward John Carnell

Through one hundred years' worth of forgotten books and dusty master's dissertations in the fields of history and folklore, through articles in defunct magazines, and amid brain-numbing ~ Stephen King

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

Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. ~ C.S. Lewis

When you write your first novel you don't really know what you're doing. There may be writers out there who are brilliant, incisive and in control from their first 'Once upon a time'. I'm not one of them. Every once upon a time for me is another experience of white-water rafting in a leaky inner tube. And I have this theory that while the Story Council has its faults, it does have some idea that if books are going to get written, authors have to be able to write them. ~ Robin McKinley

Isn't that about an orphan?" I asked. I hated those kinds of books.
"You can't avoid orphan stories, child. Every story is an orphaned story. Life is an orphan story. We are all orphaned sooner or later."
"In my case, sooner."
"Yes, in your case, sooner. But you are strong, and God never gives us more than we can bear. ~ Gabrielle Zevin

I just hope that readers and publishers continue to appreciate good writing and good storytelling in all their various forms. And I hope that people continue to read books, even though we have so many other options for entertainment. ~ Karen Thompson Walker

In order to pronounce a book bad it is not enough to discover that it elicits no good response from ourselves, for that might be our fault. ~ C.S. Lewis

I have Black guys who tell me they put my books on their bed stands to read at night like something for guidance or information. That really pleases me a lot. I think my work has changed some things. It's changed me. ~ Ishmael Reed

If you grow up in Ireland and read books then you really are obliged to attempt your own some time. It is not exactly a choice. I still don't know if I am a writer. Believe me, there are days when I have my doubts. ~ Anne Enright

It took Lucy forty hours to die and we hardly left her side ... We spent those last hours kissing her frequently and telling her how deeply we loved her. Then I began to read Leah's children's books out loud to her. She had lived a storyless childhood, so I read in the last day of her life the books she had missed. I told her about Winnie the Pooh and Yertle the Turtle, took her Where the Wild Things Are, introduced her to Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland. Each of us took turns reading to her out of Grimm's Fairy Tales, and, at the very last, Leah insisted that I tell all the Great Dog Chippie stories I had told her during our year of exile from the family in Rome. ~ Pat Conroy

By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future. ~ Zelda Fitzgerald

Adult novels are as ephemeral as newspapers. Children's books stay in print for decades. ~ Sid Fleischman

You don't just read a book to find adventure. You read a book to find yourself. ~ C.E. Dimond

Comic books sort of follow with the move - if people see the movie and if they're interested in the character and want to see more of the character, they start buying the comic books. So a good movie helps the sale of the comic books and the comic books help the movie and one hand washes the other. So, I don't think there's any reason to think that comics will die out. ~ Stan Lee

The Bible is the most inspired book of all times. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Years ago, when I was about to go on a book tour for Someplace to Be Flying, my editor at the time Terri Windling and I sat down to figure out what to call what I was writing for the interviews that were to come. Terri came up with the term mythic fiction and I think that sums it up perfectly. There are almost invariably mythic elements in my fiction (as well as bits of folk and faerie lore) and the term doesn't lock me into writing only in an urban setting since many of my stories take place in rural areas. It never caught on, but when I don't describe what I do as simply fiction, I'll go with mythic fiction. ~ Charles De Lint

If peace had a smell,it would be the smell of a library full of old, leather-bound books. ~ Mark Pryor

You tell a kid he doesn't like to read, and he'll believe you ~ Gabrielle Zevin

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

Books couldn't judge you or hurt you. They didn't make me feel small and insignificant. I know it's weird, but I always felt really close to the characters in books, like they were my true circle of friends, inviting me into their world. ~ Amy Koto

The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power to promote the general welfare. Surely this is to burn the house to roast the pig ... The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children. ~ Felix Frankfurter

Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who've helped me. ~ Bill Hicks

Now he could work her likeness into any story of his choosing. Now he could fight dragons for her. And now he could kiss her again. ~ Sherry Thomas

Even the most ill-formed words, set to paper, are a great blessing. ~ Ruthanna Emrys