Old Book Quotes

There's nothing like the feel of an old book in your hands. ~ Kathryn Shay

How desperately I wanted to forsake these facts, to open a smelly old book or to go down on a pretty young girl instead. Why couldn't I have been born to a better world? ~ Gary Shteyngart

Just so you know," I begin, "when they say 'Once upon a time' ... they're lying. It's not once upon a time. It's not even twice upon a time. It's hundreds of times, over and over, every time someone opens up the pages of this dusty old book. ~ Jodi Picoult

She was transcribing names and phone numbers from an old book to a new one. There were no addresses. Her friends had phone numbers only, a race of people with a seven-bit analog consciousness. ~ Don DeLillo

I know this sounds like quite a pile. I know, too, that some of you will wonder why I don't just buy a Kindle. I see your point, but the trouble is that to do so would be to forgo the pleasure of the moment when, years in the future, sand falls from the pages of an old book, and you suddenly remember the Isle of Wight and A Passage to India, a Greek island and The Map of Love, or whatever. For me, a ghostly trace of Ambre Solaire rising from the pages of a sun-bleached paperback is a way back to the past: to favourite stories as much as to favourite beaches. ~ Rachel Cooke

An old book was a time capsule. When you opened the front cover, you opened a door to another world - a world accessible through a kind of looking glass made of hard-board and cloth. The author's voice resonated in the reader's head with the same words that had resonated in his own as he wrote them. He spoke to the reader from the past. What he had witnessed, experienced, learned, and discovered would live forever. You only had to turn a page to travel in time. ~ Stephen Parrish

I like Victorian children's novels extremely a lot. If I would say I collect anything, that's what I'll hunt for now and again at old book stores. ~ Joss Whedon

Tom O' Bedlam among the Sunflowers"

To have gold in your back yard and not know it. . .
I woke this morning before your dream had shredded
And found a curious thing: flowers made of gold,

Six-sided - more than that - broken on flagstones,
Petals the color of a wedding band.
You are sleeping. The morning comes up gold.

Perhaps I made those flowers in my head,
For I have counted snowflakes in July
Blowing across my eyes like bits of calcium,

And I have stepped into your dream at night,
A stranger there, my body steeped in moonlight.
I watched you tremble, washed in all that silver.

Love, the stars have fallen into the garden
And turned to frost. They have opened like a hand.
It is the color that breaks out of the bedsheets.

This morning the garden is littered with dry petals
As yellow as the page of an old book.
I step among them. They are brittle as bone china. ~ Thomas James

Isn't it what all librarians strive toward, at least in the movies and cliches? Silence, invisibility, nothing but a rambling cloud of old book dust. ~ Rebecca Makkai

Old is old at any age. Old is when you quit asking questions about this, that, and everything. Old is when you forget how to love-or worse, don't care. Old is when you don't want to dance anymore. Old is when you don't want to learn anything new except how to be old. Old is when people tell you that you are old-and you believe them. ~ Carew Papritz

Elliot was trying to teach himself trollish via a two-hundred-year-old book by a man who'd had a traumatic break-up with a troll. This meant a lot of commentary along the lines of "This is how trolls say I love you. FOOTNOTE: BUT THEY DON'T MEAN IT! ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

I don't think I've ever read an old book through from start to finish. Not after more than six months after writing it, that is. ~ Nicholas Mosley

Those who think of the Amazon as a Green Hell," she read in an old book with a tattered spine, "bring only their own fears and prejudices to this amazing land. For whether a place is a hell or a heaven rests in yourself, and those who go with courage and an open mind may find themselves in Paradise. ~ Eva Ibbotson

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt. ~ Ray Bradbury

By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It ~ Henry David Thoreau

Of course, of course. Drugs, music, a new age dawning ... and you came for an old book. ~ Robin Sloan

We are absurd," Mr. Tagomi said, "because we live by a five-thousand-year-old book. We set it questions as if it were alive. It is alive. As is the Christian Bible; many books are actually alive. Not in metaphoric fashion. Spirit animates it. Do you see?" He inspected Mr. Baynes' face for his reaction. ~ Philip K. Dick

The Bible is the torch of civilization and liberty. Its influence for good in society has been recognized by the greatest statesmen, even though they for the most part have looked at it through the various glasses of conflicting creeds, which, while upholding the Bible, grievously misrepresent its teachings. The grand old book is unintentionally but woefully misrepresented by its friends, many of whom would lay down life on its behalf; and yet they do it more vital injury than its foes, by claiming its support to their long-revered misconceptions of its truth, received through the traditions of their fathers. Would that such would awake, re-examine their oracle, and put to confusion its enemies by disarming them of their weapons!
[...] The fact that this book has survived so many centuries, notwithstanding such unparalleled efforts to banish and destroy it, is at least strong circumstantial evidence that the great Being whom it claims as its Author has also been its Preserver.
It is also true that the moral influence of the Bible is uniformly good. Those who become careful students of its pages are invariably elevated to a purer life. Other writings upon religion and the various sciences have done good and have ennobled and blessed mankind, to some extent; but all other books combined have failed to bring the joy, peace and blessing to the groaning creation that the Bible has brought to both the rich and the poor, to the learned and the unlearned. ~ Charles Taze Russell

Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book.
These oil-stained pages recount the tales of the Fallen,
a frayed empire, words without warmth. The hearth
has ebbed, its gleam and life's sparks are but memories
against dimming eyes - what cast my mind, what hue my
thoughts as I open the Book of the Fallen
and breathe deep the scent of history?
Listen, then, to these words carried on that breath.
These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again.
We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all. ~ Steven Erikson

If you don't know how to grow old, don't start learning how to grow old. ~ Carew Papritz

Melancholy had crept inside me. Small children made me cry, I got depressed eating meat, old book bindings awakened tenderness in me. Everything was disintegrating. Nothing stood the test of time, including me. Somewhere on the other shore were madness and God, sometimes both wearing a beard. Neither instilled much confidence. ~ Mati Unt

Instead, he uttered another complaint. "You're allowing a dusty old book to control your destiny!" A book controlling me? Heat shot to my temples. I shifted in my saddle to face him fully. "Understand this, Your Majesty, there's been a lot of effort to control my life, but it hasn't come from books! Look a little further back! A kingdom that betrothed me to an unknown prince controlled my destiny. A Komizar who commandeered my voice controlled my destiny. And a young king who would force protection on me thought he would control my destiny. Make no mistake about it, Rafe. I am choosing my destiny now - not a book, nor a man or a kingdom. If my goals and heart coincide with something in an old dusty book, so be it. I choose to serve this goal, just as you are free to choose yours!" I lowered my voice and added with cold certainty, "I promise you, King Jaxon, if Morrighan falls, Dalbreck will be next, and then every other kingdom on the continent until the Komizar has consumed them all. ~ Mary E. Pearson

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. ~ Henry David Thoreau

She was dashing back, an enormous old book in her arms.
"I never thought to look in here!" she whispered excitedly. "I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading."
"Light?" said Ron. ~ J.K. Rowling

You ignorant little rodent! This isn't just an old book. This is the book of Everafter."
"Sorry, I haven't read it. I'm waiting for the movie," Puck said. ~ Michael Buckley

Well I'm looking at history," she said, pointing at me. "You used to be a friend, but now you stink as a friend! I came here to give you a second chance and you make me smell the crotch of an old book. ~ Jack Gantos

For the first time, I smelled her. I can't describe the smell. Flowery, yet somehow musty, like a beautiful woman with the soul of an old book. ~ Caris O'Malley

OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an "old man". Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an "old" book. ~ Ambrose Bierce

It's not an old book, or a treasure map. Nope. Staring up at me was a pile of rocks. ~ Wendy Mass

My favorite smells are freshly baked bread, the pages of an old book, and they way my boss' ass smells when he's shouting at me. ~ Jarod Kintz

When I was twelve, the passage from silent film to the talkies had an impact on me-I still watch silent films. I don't think that there is any such thing as an old film; you don't say, 'I read an old book by Flaubert,' or 'I saw an old play by Moliere.' ~ Alain Resnais

Sometimes I feel I don't want to know anything more about [history] than I know already. [ ... ] Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only
finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember that your nature and you past doings have been kist like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'. [ ... ] I shouldn't mind learning why
why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike, [ ... ] but that's what books will not tell me. ~ Thomas Hardy

I am a shadow. I walk the wet roads under the dim light of the pale lamps, in the darkest hour of the cold dull nights.
I walk past the silent graveyard of the dead memories, towards the city of chaos plagued with gloom.
I do not exist, but in the eyes of the shattered souls. In the chapter of an old book. In the poem. In the smile of a wrecked and in the tear of a broken spirit.
Listen me in the songs told in the times long forgotten.
Search for me in the churchs and temples, bars and brothels,pitch black nights and the colorless days.
Dive down in your deepest part of your soul. And you will find my home.
I have many faces but I have no face of my own. I am a shadow. ~ Foaad Ahmad

You are a half-blood," Zoe Nightshade said. Her accent was hard to place. It sounded old-fashioned, like she was reading from a really old book. "One of thy parents was mortal. The other was an Olympian."
"An Olympian athlete?"
"No," Zoe said. "One of the gods."
"Cool!" said Nico. ~ Rick Riordan

I just love the smell of an old book store and the feel of the crisp pages along my fingertips. ~ Leah Spiegel

Whenever the sadness got too much, I would hire a rickshaw and go to the Upper Bazaar. Those little rickshaw trips to the market and back, shopping for lipsticks and imitation Gucci bags and wind-chimes and what not, are some of my happiest memories today. You know, one day, during one of those trips, I sold all my well-thumbed copies of 'Inside Outside' to the Tibetan guy who ran the old book store on Netaji Road for seventy rupees, six Tintins and a disarming smile. And all of a sudden, that moment, standing at the corner of Netaji road, I found out who I was.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') ~ Kunal Sen

There is no smell that speaks to me more than the scent of an old book does. ~ Laryssa Marie

Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only - finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'. ~ Thomas Hardy

There are things in the Old Book which I may not be able to explain, but I fully accept it as the infallible Word of God, and receive its teachings as inspired by the Holy Spirit. ~ Robert E.Lee

The grand old Book of God still stands; and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the Sacred word. ~ James Dwight Dana

While some dismiss the Bible as a dusty old book, I view its pages as portals to adventure. Not only is the book chock-full of clever plots and compelling stories, but it's laced with historical insights and literary beauty. When I open the Scripture, I imagine myself exploring an ancient kingdom ... With every encounter, I learn something new about their life journeys and am reminded that the Bible is more than a record of the human quest for God: it's the revelation of God's quest for us. - Scouting the Divine ~ Margaret Feinberg

Find a girl who reads. You'll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She's the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That's the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. ~ Rosemarie Urquico

All the rare-book dealers regaled me with stories of the trade. They told me that after the war there were too many books and not enough bookshop space, so all the dealers in London BURIED hundreds of old books in the open bomb craters of London streets. Today the buried books would be worth a fortune if they could be recovered, if the new buildings could be torn down and the rebuilt streets torn up. I had a sudden vision of an atomic war destroying everything in the world, except here and there an old book lying where it fell when it was blasted up out of the depths of London. ~ Helene Hanff

In all of my adventures, nothing ever smelled quite like an old book. ~ Jennifer Wilson

What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us. ~ James Russell Lowell

I'm a Republican, but I'm a Republican from the old school. I was taught that you get what you put into it. You can be anything you want to be if you work hard enough at it, and you can earn your place. That's the old way. ~ Joe Perry

Did he really want to know? That at any given moment I see everyday life as only _this big_, the space between my finger and thumb. The rest of my mind is occupied with five, a dozen, three dozen other potential lives, each representing some opportunity never taken or currently within reach. Without those worlds of possibility, my life immediately begins to seem boring and drab. I'm thirty-three years old, always broke, and merely _existing_ in what, without having been sealed by formal wedding vows, had become a traditional marriage. I had no blues to lament, not really. My only drama was in my daydreams. They reminded me that any day, at any moment, I could change everything, and while many of those alternate lives featured James at my side--the truth was that some of them did not. ~ Alisa Smith

So what was in this building before historical materialism?'
'Before what?'
'You know, back then, under the old regime?'
'Oh. Under the old regime my master lived here.'
'A bourgeois?'
'You're a bourgeois yourself! He wasn't a bourgeois. He was a marshal of the nobility.'
'So he was a proletarian, then?'
'You're a proletarian yourself! I told you loud and clear, a marshal.'
The conversation with the clever dvornik with a vague understanding of the class structure of society would have lasted god knows how long if the young man hadn't made a decisive move. ~ Ilya Ilf

Before she was allowed to take the albums out of their sleeves, Eleanor used to lay them out on the floor and stare at the artwork. When she was old enough, her dad taught her how to dust the records with a wood-handled velvet brush. She could remember her mother lighting incense ~ Rainbow Rowell

When I'm old I shall wear midnight, she'd decided. But, for now, she'd had enough of darkness. ~ Terry Pratchett

When I was eight years old, I was abducted from a fast food restaurant by a man who took me, in all likelihood, because of a small splotch of mayonnaise on his hamburger. And so I believe in neither free will nor predetermination.

I believe in condiments. ~ Michael Fiegel

One cannot innovate new improvements without understanding old failures. ~ Deanna Raybourn

Don't moralize at me! I have no love
For images, old gods, prophetic words.
I want to talk to Utnapishtim!
Tell me how. ~ Herbert Mason

Well, little old Noisyville-on-the Subway is good enough for me. ~ O. Henry

Let ur love be ur state of being ,, NOT that u fall in love , but just that u r loving .. it is simply ur nature ... You can be in state of love only if u drop the old mind pattern of relationships ,,,, LOVE IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP .. ~ Osho

No men deserve the title of infidels so little as those to whom it has been usually applied; let any of those who renounce Christianity, write fairly down in a book all the absurdities that they believe instead of it, and they will find that it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

The book of Revelation may be difficult and demanding to read, yet it is the only biblical book whose author promises a blessing to those who read it. ~ Billy Graham

Europe's the mayonnaise, but America supplies the good old lobster. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Were you here in the bad old days? ... That's why you can't read and write then! ~ Prince Philip

In the same way as some illiterate, if he saw an open book, would notice the figures, but would not comprehend the letters, so also the stupid and 'animal man' who 'does not perceive the things of God', may see the outward appearance of these visible creatures, but does not understand the reason within. ~ Hugh Of Saint-Victor

And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet) in a quite unprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything without fulfilling some of their prophecies.

But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets, of peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especially women, a strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever of doubt. They could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. They still had something up their sleeve; they were still playing the game of Cheat the Prophet.

Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither and thither, crying, "What can it be? What can it be? What will London be like a century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Houses upside down--more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands--make feet flexible, don't you know? Moon ... motor-cars ... no heads...." And so they swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely. ~ G.K. Chesterton

No dreams, no visions, no delicious fantasies, no castles in the air, with which, as the old song so truly says, hearts are broken, heads are turned. ~ William Osler

My career progressed slowly. Real slow at a time. The irony of it was I had the best part of my career between when I was 45 and 49 years old. That's when most people are in their twilight, waiting to get to the Champions Tour. And that's when I made most of my hay. ~ Fred Funk

I was playing little league baseball when Bruce Jenner was winning the gold, but I don't think I was really paying attention at that time. It wasn't until 1980 - I think I was 12 years old - that I thought, 'Wow that's what I want to do. I want to be on the Olympic team.' ~ Dan O'Brien

It is more than a book, it is an institution which rules the Christian world. ~ Philip Schaff

grip my arm. I willed the old ~ Jojo Moyes

The Master's power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire. He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old. ~ Laozi

My friend looked at me confused. He laughed a little, then sighed, then teared up. "It's true you're bad at relationships," I said, "but it's also true you are good at them. They're both true, old friend." I reminded him of all the people who love him and all the people he's loved. I told him I thought it was unfair for a man to be judged by a moment, by a season. We are all more complicated than that. ~ Donald Miller

You never knew what shape your enemies would take." from the book -- Black Gold of the Sun ~ Ekow Eshun

A book collection is a cross between a Rorschach test and This Is Y our Life. It marks your life clearly like rings on a tree. ~ Margo Kaufman

The instant of nature
forming between them drained every drop from the walls of   his life
leaving behind just ghosts
rustling like an old map. ~ Anne Carson

In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweethearts, are surest, and old lovers are soundest. ~ John Webster

Cherishables," I agreed. "Lovely little finds that have tiny value but lots of heart. Tea tins, picture frames, old perfume bottles. Half the fun is finding them, and the other half imagining where they came from. ~ Rebecca Raisin

I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. ~ Markus Zusak

Accept who you are. Don't leave me, Willow. We are all broken, that's how the light shines through. - Rhydian ~ Mira Monroe

It is one thing to be a man's wife - quite another to be the mother of his children. In fact, once you become a mother, being a wife seems like a game you once played or a self-help book you were overly impressed with as a teenager that on second reading is puffy with common ideas. This was one of the many things I had learned since crossing over into the middle place - that sliver of time when childhood and parenthood overlap. ~ Kelly Corrigan

In retrospect, it seems obvious that my research about parenting was also a means to subdue my anxieties about becoming a parent.... I grew up afraid of illness and disability, inclined to avert my gaze from anyone who was too different – despite all the ways I knew myself to be different. This book helped me kill that bigoted impulse, which I had always known to be ugly. The obvious melancholy in the stories I heard should, perhaps, have made me shy away from paternity, but it had the opposite effect. ~ Andrew Solomon

Being an actor, you always feel like you're swimming upstream. People are going, "No, they don't like you. They don't like the way you look. They don't like how old you are." ~ Bradley Whitford

Same old notes, Blanche thinks at one point, but arranged into unfamiliar music. ~ Emma Donoghue

I used to love to sit and listen to the old people talk about yesterday. There's a lot of good information there. ~ Curtis Mayfield

They knew that if, as a child, you do pluck up the courage to hit a bully, it is an act of true heroism--as great as that of Beowulf in his old age. ~ Diana Wynne Jones

Maybe it's not a coincidence that I've always been interested in heroes, starting with my dad, Phil Robertson, and my mom, Miss Kay. My other heroes are my pa and my granny, who taught me how to play cards and dominoes and everything about fishing (which was a lot), and my three older brothers, who teased me, beat me up, and sometimes let me follow them around. Not much has changed in that department.
I've always loved movies, and when I was about seven or eight years old, I watched Rocky, Sylvester Stallone's movie about an underdog boxer who used his fists, along with sheer will, determination, and the ability to endure pain, to make a way for himself. He fought hard but played fair and had a soft spot for his friends. I fell in love with Rocky. He was my hero, and I became obsessed.
When I decide to do something, I'm all in; so I found a pair of red shorts that looked like Rocky's boxing trunks and a navy blue bathrobe with two white stripes on the sleeve and no belt. I took off my shirt and ran around bare-chested in my robe and shorts. Most kids I knew went through a superhero phase, but they picked DC Comics guys, like Batman or Superman. Not me. I was Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, and proud of it. Mom let me run around like that for a couple of years, even when we went in to town.
Rocky had a girlfriend, Adrian, who was always there, always by his side. When he was beaten and blinded in a bad fight, he called out for her before anybody else. "Yo, A ~ Jep Robertson

I didn't go on dialysis because I was 81 years old and I'd done everything I wanted, or so I thought. ~ Art Buchwald

Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache. ~ C.S. Lewis

Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood. ~ Betty Smith

Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning; for death, unheralded, shall come upon thee and thou shalt be called to give account for thy deeds. ~ Bahaullah

Finally, I want to thank all of the writers, filmmakers, actors, artists, musicians, programmers, game designers, and geeks whose work I've paid tribute to in this story. These people have all entertained and enlightened me, and I hope that - like Halliday's hunt - this book will inspire others to seek out their creations. ~ Ernest Cline

I never expected to earn money out of writing. In fact, the idea of getting published was too bourgeois. Then, in England, I realised that writing a book was something you could do without it being laughable. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

Is an audience open to seeing a film that isn't what they expect when they see a film that's been adapted from a children's book? ~ Spike Jonze