Guidebook Quotes

More Latin? I was going to need a fucking guidebook to keep track of a language I thought was as dead as my mother. ~ T.J. Klune

I am a pastor, and I teach and preach the Bible to my congregation every week. But the Bible is not a manufacturer's handbook. Neither is it a science textbook nor a guidebook for public policy. ~ Adam Hamilton

I'm starving. When we check into our hotel, let's ask the desk clerk where we can find one of those vast pizzas."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your guidebook says Florence is a city of vast pizzas. Look it up yourself."
"Those are vast piazzas, not pizzas! It means public squares!"
Dan's face fell. "Oh."
Amy sighed. "I honestly thought the clue hunt took the dweeb out of you. No such luck. ~ Gordon Korman

...Montessori decided her teachers must each write their own textbook based on their own understanding of Montessori education... her own personal guidebook to refer to, revise, and add to throughout her teaching career.
...By writing her own guidebook, the Montessori teacher is forced to think through her personal approach to the materials and the children on a deeper level than if she were merely handed someone else's answers. This policy of asking each teacher to state her own understanding of Montessori philosophy is consistent with a philosophy and method of education that asks children to discover their own answers, instead of expecting to appropriate and substitute someone else's experiences for their own. ~ Paula Polk Lillard

The sense of war, the extraordinary bravery of the Allied armies, the numbers, the losses, the real suffering that disappears in time and commemorative oratory, are not marked out in any red guidebook of the emotions, but they are present if you look. ~ John Vinocur

I am collecting the lessons each faction has to teach me, and storing them in my mind like a guidebook for moving through the world. There is always somthing to learn, always somthing that is important to understand ~ Veronica Roth

Just ask the local people for the best food. Don't rely on a guidebook. ~ Masaharu Morimoto

I went to the UN and even the guidebook was spineless. ~ Dennis Miller

The idea of the Bible as a divine guidebook, a map for getting through the terra incognita of life, is our golden calf. It's a substitute for the wilderness wandering that the life of faith necessarily entails. ~ Timothy Beal

I could write a guidebook about this city, this fallen city. Street by street, house by house, church by church. What happened in this building, who was betrayed, and by whom, in this apartment, who waited for whom on this street corner. And why the person never came. ~ Adam Zagajewski

Consulting maps can diminish the wanderlust that they awaken,as the act of looking at them can replace the act of travel. But looking at maps is much more than an act of aesthetic replacement. Anyone who opens an atlas wants everything at once, without limits
the whole world. This longing will always be great, far greater than any satisfaction to be had by attaining what is desired. Give me an atlas over a guidebook any day. There is no more poetic book in the world. ~ Judith Schalansky

I've had a dozen novels published and have made far more than a dozen mistakes. Which is why Randy Susan Meyers and I wrote a guidebook to help authors avoid making our mistakes. ~ M.J. Rose

It is my hope that this book will help to demystify the origins of travel writing and show that when thousands of travelers follow a guidebook word-for-word, recommendation-for-recommendation, it not only harms contemporary international travel but can also do serious harm to places in developing countries. ~ Thomas Kohnstamm

Taking the Bible too literally is a mistake. It should be read as a guidebook of wisdom and insight. ~ A. J. Jacobs

Whatever a guidebook says, wether or not you leave somewhere with a sense of the place is entirely a matter of smell and instinct. ~ Frances Mayes

It's easy to set a story anywhere if you get a good guidebook and get some basic street names, and some descriptions, but, for me, yes, I am indebted to my travels to India for several of the stories. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Maybe nostalgia is itself the problem. A Democrat I met in Macon during a conversation we had about the local enthusiasm for Trump told me that "people want to go back to Mayberry", the setting of the beloved old Andy Griffith Show. (As it happens, the actual model for Mayberry, Mount Airy, a bedraggled town in North Carolina, has gone all in on the Trump revolution, as the Washington Post recently reported.)

Maybe it's also true, as my liberal friends believe, that what people in this part of the country secretly long to go back to are the days when the Klan was riding high or when Quantrill was terrorizing the people of neighboring Kansas, or when Dred Scott was losing his famous court case. For sure, there is a streak of that ugly sentiment in the Trump phenomenon.

But I want to suggest something different: that the nostalgic urge does not necessarily have to be a reactionary one. There is nothing un-progressive about wanting your town to thrive, about recognizing that it isn't thriving today, about figuring out that the mid-century, liberal way worked better.

For me, at least, that is how nostalgia unfolds. When I drive around this part of the country, I always do so with a WPA guidebook in hand, the better to help me locate the architectural achievements of the Roosevelt years. I used to patronize a list of restaurants supposedly favored by Harry Truman (they are slowly disappearing).

And these days, as I pass Trump sign after ~ Thomas Frank

Everything my guidebook said was true and also meaningless. Yes, the East was vast, teeming, and infinitely complex, but wasn't the West also? Pointing out that the East was an inexhaustible source of riches and wonder only implied that it was peculiarly the case, and not so for the West. The Westerner, of course, took his riches and wonder for granted, just as I had never noticed the enchantment of the East or its mystery. If anything, it was the West that was often mysterious, frustrating, and really interesting, a world utterly different from everything I had known before I began my education. As with the Westerner, the Easterner was never so bored as he was when on his own shores. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

There were many ways down Mount Fuji, according to my guidebook, but only one way up. Life lesson in that, I thought. Signs ~ Phil Knight

Suddenly I'd had Enough and this was no turn of phrase but a warm body, nervous, with a constitution I could count on like a younger brother. That's when I told my mother: on the other side it's really underdeveloped. We're going back. Really, I said: I want to go back, not possible unless Mummy who is part of me comes too. We wait in the empty street at the stop for Lethe, the only bus that runs both ways. My mother is losing patience. The bus doesn't come. It's not easy to wait for a bus you've heard is the only one that runs both ways. I check the guidebook. Neither Canto XIV of the Iliad nor Canto XI of the Odyssey mentions the place. Just what you'd expect for Lethe I tell myself. Naturally forgetfulness attracts attention to itself by means of absence and omission. But for my mother the bus not turning up is the theme of her nightmares. I explain that in this country one comes along every quarter of an hour...To signal to the vehicle that one wishes to board Oblivion Return one must fan open the grille by pressing a button and lighting up the small lantern on the top of the archway, which I did. It's the one gleam of hope in this world. ~ Helene Cixous

Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant. ~ John Muir

For me, 'Moby-Dick' is more than the greatest American novel ever written; it is a metaphysical survival manual - the best guidebook there is for a literate man or woman facing an impenetrable unknown: the future of civilization in this storm-tossed 21st century. ~ Nathaniel Philbrick

The only thing I hope for is that, regardless of what the outward world is for different people, different nations, I hope their internal world is similar. And if I, hopefully, have managed to somehow describe my inner world in this book, all I count on is that it will have some resonance among the American readers, or, at the very least, the American readers will treat this book as a kind of a guidebook for my inner world, strange as it may appear. ~ Vera Pavlova

Ah. Well, it stands for Freedom From Morality. We don't think healthy amorality happens naturally."
"But you're not amoral," I pointed out. I would trust you to keep your word any time. You don't steal. I've never known you to harm anyone except enemy soldiers in time of war."
He laughed. "I didn't say 'immoral', I said amoral. You really didn't read your guidebook. A person who has a compulsive need to break moral commandments is as much a prisoner as the person who feels bound to obey them. And the human brain is hardwired to produce moral commandments. That is why we think you have to train young people to keep them from developing morality and blocking their pursuit of pleasure. I teach it because --"
"It gives you an outlet for your sadistic urge to confuse children. ~ John Barnes

Dave Wann's recipes from his own experience in Simple Prosperity are a breath of fresh air, and just what we need for a saner future. They include ideas, sound research and down-to-earth advice we can all use. This book is also much more: a friendly, personal guidebook for living a more enjoyable, healthy, loving life. ~ Hazel Henderson

My friend Jim Richardson, a National Geographic photojournalist, likes to make the distinction between being a "traveler" and a "sightseer." According to Jim, a traveler seeks engagements with the local people and culture, while the sightseer just clicks off sights in the guidebook, a "been there, done that" mentality. A sightseeing photographer stands apart from the culture and "steals" pictures from a distance, while a travel photographer becomes involved with his or her surroundings and the people, and the resulting pictures become more intimate. ~ Bob Krist

Louvain was a dull place, said a guidebook in 1910, but when the time came it made a spectacular fire. ~ Margaret MacMillan

I always gave her a book. An old hardback from the same section in the used bookstore where you'd find Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and musty scrawled-in Hobbits, the painted paper covers often ripped or gone ...
My favorite was a sort of illustrated guidebook of pond creatures on which a very young child had written in pencil on each page under the picture of an otter
I love otter
Under a muskrat:
I love muskrat
Beaver:
I love beaver ~ Peter Heller

POLITENESS must carry the true weight of SINCERITY and INTEGRITY for it to be a true act of POLITENESS. ~ Carew Papritz

There is no definitive guidebook on how to pick the right partner, and even if there were, I'm way too dumb to write it. ~ Justin Halpern

You don't need a guidebook to see New Orleans - just a good pair of shoes. ~ James Carville

Just a reminder - a guidebook is no substitute for skill, experience, judgment and lots of tension. ~ Charlie Fowler

Your passions are a bit like your fingerprints: Everybody has them; everybody's are different. One's passions may just be a guidebook to one's life. ~ Nick Woodman

Let's start with the basics." He pulled a worn Helios-Ra guidebook of the top of the pile of books next to his laptop. "You got one of these in your orientation packet, right?"
"I already had a copy," I replied. I'd picked Kieran's pocket this summer for it, to be precise. I had my own profile in the cream-colored pages.
Tyson flushed. "Oh. Right. I forgot you're in it."
"I'm famous," I agreed blandly. "Just this morning someone locked me in a bathroom stall."
He flushed even redder.
"Are you blushing?"
He cleared his throat. "No."
I grinned. "You are adorable."
"Uh ..."
"Relax, I'm dating the undead, remember."
"Stop teasing poor Tyson," Jenna said from behind me.
I tilted my head to look up at her. "But it's fun."
Jenna hiked her hip on the table and swung her sneaker-clad foot. "You're going to give him a coronary."
We both turned to grin at him, waiting for his retort. He just looked slightly nauseated. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

Money-it can buy your kids anything, but it cannot teach them love, respect, and the true value of living life without things. ~ Carew Papritz

At one point in the journey, we're approaching the Arc de Triomphe.

"That's awesome," states Paul.

"My guidebook says that it's the resting place of the 'unknown soldier' and the flame never goes out," I announce proudly.

The taxi driver says something to Elizabeth, who is sitting in the front.

"Franz here, suggests that if the budget deficit gets any worse, they intend to turn the gas off except on Public Holidays."

"Still practically every day then! ~ Chambers Mars

People need to know why we, as the Jewish people, have a right to be here. We need to tell people what we are doing here ... My tourism guidebook is the Bible. ~ Ariel Sharon

For every traveller who has any taste of his own, the only useful guidebook will be the one which he himself has written. ~ Aldous Huxley

It's a booley village," Ian told her. "The islanders used to take their animals into the hills for the summ. They'd camp out in these stone huts: men, women, and children. Everyone stayed up all night, sang, told stories, watched the stars. It must have been great craic."
"How do you know this stuff?" she asked, admiringly.
"I' a bloody genius." When she threw him a look, he grinned. " I also read it in the guidebook. ~ O.R. Melling

On the plane, I like to read fiction set in the location I'm going to. Fiction is in many ways more useful than a guidebook, because it gives you those little details, a sense of the way a place smells, an emotional sense of the place. So, I'll bring Graham Greene's The Quiet American if I'm going to Vietnam. It's good to feel romantic about a destination before you arrive. ~ Anthony Bourdain

If I had writing materials, I might write a guidebook, a source of advice and inspiration for the next generation of masked criminals, bent prodigies, and lonely geniuses, the ones who've been taught to feel different, or the ones who knew it from the start. The ones who are smart enough to do something about it. There are things they should hear. Somebody has to tell them. ~ Austin Grossman

I wore only black socks, because I had heard that white ones were the classic sign of the American tourist. Black ones though,- those'll fool 'em. I supposed I hoped the European locals' conversation would go something like this:

PIERRE: Ha! Look at that tourist with his camera and guidebook!
JACQUES: Wait, but observe his socks! They are...black!
PIERRE: Zut alors! You are correct! He is one of us! What a fool I am! Let us go speak to him in English and invite him to lunch! ~ Doug Mack

If the guidebook used to be critical, today it seems largely a celebratory adjunct to the publicity operations of hotels, resorts, and even countries. ~ Paul Fussell