Novel And Book Quotes

Maggie Shipstead takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go. Astonish Me is a haunting, powerful novel. ~ Dani Shapiro

The only objections that have occurred to me are, 1st that you have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum so unreservedly ... And 2nd, it is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all. However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to begin picking holes. ~ Thomas Huxley

Though the blame cannot be placed entirely on publishers, I do think a more diverse pool of editors would go a long way toward broadening the perspective. Our role is to work together to create books that act as wide-open doors - books that allow all children to walk through and feel safe enough to stay. ~ Jerry Pinkney

As much as there are intellectual choices to be made and all the rest of it, a great actor has the ability really, to disappear and lose themself in a kind of mystical fashion. My appreciation and fascination with true acting is really all over the book, definitely. ~ Rebecca Miller

You don't go to other books and take little pieces because although say a romantic scene may have been many times before all the details of who it is, where it is, are so intertwined in that text that it's easier to write it from scratch. ~ Bill Gates

It took longer for the fork to gain acceptance in England because it was thought to be a feminine utensil. Thomas Coryate, an English traveler and philosopher who had been to Italy and France, published a book in 1611 that included the Italian custom of eating with a fork. He declared himself the first man in London to eat with a fork. ~ Dorothea Johnson

Do they [the publishers of Murphy] not understand that if the book is slightly obscure it is because it is a compression and thatto compress it further can only make it more obscure? ~ Samuel Beckett

When a mere girl, my mother offered me a dollar if I would read the Bible through; ... despairing of reconciling many of its absurd statements with even my childish philosophy, ... I became a sceptic, doubter, and unbeliever, long ere the 'Good Book' was ended. ~ Elmina Drake Slenker

'The Hobbit' by J. R. R. Tolkien was the first book I enjoyed. I was 14 and when I finished I started it again. ~ Nigel Lythgoe

To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again ... books which I have read carefully a few years before. I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it. ~ Michel De Montaigne

I was secretly convinced that with such a marvel one would be able to write anything, from novels to encyclopedias, and letters whose supernatural power would surpass any postal limitations
a letter written with that pen would reach the most remote corners of the world, even that unknowable place to which my father said my mother had gone and from where she would never return. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The book tour has been really interesting and very gratifying. I have not book toured before. I've never had quite as much pleasure, as much satisfaction. ~ Leonard Nimoy

Books, like people, can't be reduced to the cost of the materials with which they were made. Books, like people, become unique and precious once you get to know them. ~ Yann Martel

I had to detach myself from myself, if that makes any sense, to conjure an authentic first-person voice. In that sense, it was similar to writing a first-person novel. But I was writing about real people, not fictional ones - myself, my family, my friends and boyfriends and ex-husband, and that was extremely tricky. ~ Kate Christensen

Obviously making Peter Parker suddenly bisexual or gay wouldn't really make logical or dramatic sense. It was a hypothetical kind of question about the nature of these comic book characters and the nature of this particular character, and whether sexuality, race, any of those things makes any difference to the character of Peter Parker. ~ Andrew Garfield

I linger too long in his embrace; the night is so warm, the rocking of the boat so lulling, I have to stop myself from swaying to the music. Daniel smells really good - a masculine cocktail of saltwater, citrus, and probably just full-on testosterone. ~ Lisa Daily

Other people's history can be read comfortably, the way a novel can be read comfortably. By my own history? I'm on the run from my own history, and catching my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind keeps talking. ~ Intizar Hussain

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

To be perfectly honest with you, I think it's reckless to love and trust another person. It's clearly foolhardy.

I'd like it very much if the many daredevils who go ahead anyway, enjoyed this book. ~ Kaori Ekuni

My Caroline,
If you're reading this endnote then I can assume you've suffered your way through the story, our story once again. I suppose having you relive our time together is the ultimate proof of my sadism, as if you of all people needed further proof.
At the end I find myself surprised by how easy it was to write this book about us. I found I missed you so much that a terrible vacuum had formed; all the words came and filled it and for a little while you were home with me again. I didn't want it to end but a story must have an end, I suppose.
I have no secrets to reveal on this final page. I loved you. At least I tried to. And I failed you. I failed you with great success. Forgive me if you can. I will not apologize anymore.
I'm done writing now. I may go into the garden and read until evening. It isn't quite the same without your head on my knee and your ill-informed criticisms of my reading material, but I shall carry on alone, page by page, until the end. And when evening comes and the sun is sitting on the edge of the earth, I will look out, searching for a break in the horizon as that father did once so many thousands of years ago…the father waiting for his prodigal child to return.
I hope you are happy. As for me, I…continue. If you ever miss me, miss… But some things are best left unwritten. Just know I have kept your room for you. I'll say no more. I know I sent you away. I know it was the right thing to do. But I also know that perhaps no ~ Tiffany Reisz

I learned that you can't write a book in the margins of your life. I'd forgotten how much uninterrupted time it takes to write chapters, and how you have to push everything else aside and really focus. ~ Melissa Harris-Perry

The difference between a short story and a novel is the difference between an inarticulate pang in your heart compared to the tragedy of your whole life. ~ Peter Orner

I think that 'City of Heavenly Fire' is definitely a book where all the characters are tested to their limits, and they have to make really significant choices about who they are and who they wanna be. ~ Cassandra Clare

Emily Kendal Frey's The Grief Performance is a book that condenses a journey of finding and re-finding loss into beautiful packages. The packages are the poems and they sit shiny and new on every page of this fabulous and generous book. I want to go into the world that these poems create, just so that I can be given these terrifying presents again and again. I know you will, too. See you there. ~ Dorothea Lasky

Why write a book on uncovering past lives? Because the benefits for personal empowerment, healing, and enlightenment are tremendous. ~ Ted Andrews

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all. ~ Helen Dunmore

I hope you feel better about yourself. I hope you feel alive. I hope that good things happen to you, and I hope that when the inevitable bad things happen you can handle them and learn a lesson and move on. I hope you know you're not alone and I hope you spend plenty of time with your family and/or friends and I hope you write more and get a seven-figure book deal. I hope next year no more celebrities die and I hope you get an iPhone if you want one. Or maybe a pony. I hope someone writes a song for you on Valentines Day that's a bit like Hey There Delilah, and I hope they have a good singing voice, or at least one better than mine. I hope that you accept yourself the way you are, and figure out that losing 20 pounds isn't going to magically make you love yourself. I hope you read a lot. I hope you don't have to almost die to figure out how valuable life is. I hope you find the perfect nail polish/digital camera/home/life partner. I hope you stop being jealous of others. I hope you feel good, about yourself and the people around you and the world. I hope you eat heaps of salt and vinegar chips because they're the best kind. I hope you accomplish all your hopes & dreams & aspirations and are blissfully happy & get married to Edward Cullen/George Clooney/Megan Fox/Angelina Jolie (delete whichever are inappropriate) & ride a pretty white horse into the sunset & I hope it's all sweet and wonderful because you deserve it because you did well this year in the fa ~ Steph Bowe

Well, it's not the amount of money you spend, but how you decide to spend it that matters. "Every day spending choices unleash a cascade of biological and emotional effects that are detectable right down to saliva," reports Harvard's Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton in their brilliant 2013 book, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending. ~ Anthony Robbins

You live in a society that has made it more comfortable to read a book about the ten ways to get a guy or girl to fall in love with you, or to obsess about your romantic love life, than to share your self-love journey with your friends and family. You're bombarded with images and media, like reality TV shows, whose underlying message tells you it's normal to look to outside sources for confirmation that you are good enough, rather than to unapologetically stand for self-respect and self-worth. ~ Christine Arylo

Also, although the great majority of the letters I've received from Hmong readers have been positive, most of the negative ones have criticized me for telling a story that was not mine to tell. I am no lover of identity politics; I believe that anyone should be allowed to write about anyone. Still, I would have harbored the same proprietary resentment had I been they. It was exactly how I felt thirty years ago, when women's voices were harder to hear because men were drowning them out. Now that young Hmong writers are starting to publish - including Mai Neng Moua, who edited a landmark literary anthology called Bamboo Among the Oaks, and Kao Kalia Yang, who wrote a fierce, sad memoir called The Latehomecomer - I am happy to shut up and listen. I hope The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is settling into its proper place not as the book about the Hmong but as a book about communication and miscommunication across cultures. ~ Anne Fadiman

I wished, first of all, to buy my way into people's good graces with my book so that, in subsequent personal contact, I would find the ground already prepared, and, I reasoned, if I succeeded in implanting in their soules a favorable image of me, this image would in turn shape me; and so, willy-nilly, I would become mature. ~ Witold Gombrowicz

Amaryllis in Blueberry is a rich, evocative story about an unusual family that will sweep readers away to another place and time. Amaryllis's voice is a spellbinding and unique blend of naivet and wisdom. A perfect melding of family saga, murder mystery and a meditation on faith, loyalty and love, this novel will both haunt and entertain you. ~ Susan Wiggs

And I thought, eight years ago, when I began carefully charting the progress of American Gods, nervously dipping my toes into the waters of blogging, would I have imagined a future in which, instead of recording the vicissitudes of bringing a book into the world, I would be writing about not-even-interestingly missing cups of cold camomile tea? And I thought, yup. Sounds about right.
Happy Eighth birthday, blog. ~ Neil Gaiman

Anyway, they have this discussion, and the kid is an idealist in a temporary way. He talks about his "restless generation" and things like that. And he says something like, "This is not a time for heroes because nobody will let that happen." The book takes place in the 1920's, which I thought was great because I supposed the same kind of conversation could happen in the Big Boy. It probably already did with our parents and grandparents. It was probably happening with us right now. ~ Stephen Chbosky

And you consider yourself as what, some sort of Count of Monte Cristo?"
He gave a nonchalant shrug. "Not particularly, though the book is a favorite of mine."
Farah frowned. "I thought you said you couldn't read."
That Dorian Blackwell could laugh at a time like this astounded her. But he did. The sound so devoid of true mirth, it caused goose pimples to rise on her skin and her nipples to tighten painfully. It was a dark sound, like the rest of him, and it washed over her with chilling totality. ~ Kerrigan Byrne

I don't think you should write a book until you tell the absolute truth. You can't do that until you're 85, and I don't want to live that long. I've always prided myself on knowing when to get off, and I hope it works out that way. ~ Lucille Ball