Quoting Books Quotes

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."
"Yes," SHe said. "I did."
She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.
"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. ~ S.E. Hinton

If you genuinely believe that only the death of a loved one can motivate a human being to take up a cause ... then get your pathetic, cynical ass out of my way so I can do my job! ~ Mark Waid

In my many years of working with people, I have never seen things change by chance, you have to work it out yourself ... life really sucks but YOU have what it takes to change it. ~ Nkem Paul

Plant trees. They give us two of the most crucial elements for our survival: oxygen and books. ~ A. Whitney Brown

On to the library. And all through his time at the card catalog, combing the shelves, filling out the request cards, he danced a silent, flirtatious minuet of the eyes with a rosy-cheeked redhead in the biology section, pages of notes spread before her. All his life, he had had a yen for women in libraries. In a cerebral setting, the physical becomes irresistible. Also, he figured he was really more likely to meet a better or at least more compatible woman in a library than in a saloon. Ought to have singles libraries, with soups and salads, Bach and Mozart, Montaignes bound in morocco; place to sip, smoke, and seduce in a classical setting, noon to midnight. Chaucer's Salons, call them, franchise chain. ~ Stephen Minkin

People who collect books, and categorize them by Roy G. Biv instead of alphabetically, are displaying the fact that their books aren't meant to be read, but merely looked at. And while they are busy looking at the rainbow of books, they're missing the pots of gold inside. ~ Jarod Kintz

A book series is never truly over. The story lives on, even when the final page has been turned. ~ Richard P. Denney

I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is."
And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.
The old trouble; things won't fit."
What things?"
The things of the universe. It's quite true. They don't."
Oh Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"
In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said:

"'From far, from eve and morning,
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I."

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all of life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world of sorrow. ~ E. M. Forster

He joined Jude in the kitchen and began making a salad, and JB slumped to the dining-room table and started flipping through a novel Jude had left there. "I read this," he called over to him. "Do you want to know what happens in the end?"
"No, JB," said Jude. "I'm only halfway through."
"The minister character dies after all."
"JB!"
After that, JB's mood seemed to improve. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

our outside loo, known as the Betty, was a good loo; whitewashed and compact with a flashlight hanging behind the door. I smuggled books in there to read them in secret, claiming constipation. ~ Jeanette Winterson

A book is a dear friend who has a thousand things to say. ~ Nicole Sager

I've been reading Greek mythology since I was a kid. I also taught it when I was a sixth grade teacher, so I knew a lot of mythological monsters already. Sometimes I still use books and Web sites to research, though. Every time I research Greek mythology, I learn something new! ~ Rick Riordan

The longest way round is the shortest way home.
(Quoting Alexander MacLaren, The Wearied Christ and Other Sermons) ~ C.S. Lewis

All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person. ~ Jean Rhys

The Greek word euphuia, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to perceive it; a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of things"
as Swift ... most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light. ~ Matthew Arnold

It is a paradox that men will gladly devote time every day for many years to learn a science or an art; yet will expect to win a knowledge of the gospel, which comprehends all sciences and arts, through perfunctory glances at books or occasional listening to sermons. The gospel should be studied more intensively than any school or college subject. They who pass opinion on the gospel without having given it intimate and careful study are not lovers of truth, and their opinions are worthless. ~ G. Homer Durham

One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards.
Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits. In fact, I insist on it.
A letter is like a poem, it leaps into life and shows very clearly the marks, perhaps I should say thumbprints, of an unwilling or unready composer. ~ James Salter

It had not been science that Lydia had loved. And then, as if the tears are telescopes, she begins to see more clearly: the shredded posters and pictures, the rubble of books, the shelf prostrate at her feet. Everything that she had wanted for Lydia, which Lydia had never wanted but had embraced anyway. A dull chill creeps over her. Perhaps - and this thought chokes her - that had dragged Lydia underwater at last. ~ Celeste Ng

I set the vodka glasses on the table, and we become gently drunk in the foetal warmth. The Australian woman doesn't quite get the picture. We have a brief exchange in English. 'Do you have a car?' she asks. 'No,' I reply. 'A TV?' 'No.' 'What if you have a problem?' 'I walk.' 'Do you go to the village for food?' 'There is no village.' 'Do you wait for a car on the road?' 'There is no road.' 'Are those your books?' 'Yes.' 'Did you write all of them?' I prefer people whose character resembles a frozen lake to those who are more like marshes. ~ Sylvain Tesson

Books are our windows on the world. They permit us to safely experience other lives and ways of thinking and feeling. Books give us a glimmer of the complexity and wonder of life. All this, the censor would deny us. ~ Harry Mazer

Words have the power to change us." - Tessa Gray ~ Cassandra Clare

My mom was there, in some form, in some sense, in some universe. My mom was still my mom, even if she only lived in books and door locks
and the smell of fried tomatoes and old paper.
She lived. ~ Kami Garcia

Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, a little too heartily, "So this is the library." There certainly couldn't be any doubt on that score; never had a room so resembled popular preconception. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood, although the finish had worn off the edges in spots, where books had scraped against the wood in passing one too many times. A whimsical iron staircase curved to the balcony, the steps narrowing into pie-shaped wedges that promised a broken neck to the unwary. I tilted my head back, dizzied by the sheer number of books, row upon row, more than the most devoted bibliophile could hope to consume in a lifetime of reading.

In one corner, a pile of crumbling paperbacks - James Bond, I noticed, squinting sideways, in splashy seventies covers - struck a slightly incongruous note. I spotted a moldering pile of Country Life cheek by jowl with a complete set of Trevelyan's History of England in the original Victorian bindings. The air was rich with the smell of decaying paper and old leather bindings. Downstairs, where I stood with Colin, the shelves made way for four tall windows, two to the east and two to the north, all hung with rich red draperies checked with blue, in the obverse of the red-flecked blue carpet. On the west wall, the bookshelves surrendered pride of place to a massive fireplace, topped with a carved hood to make Ivanhoe proud, and large enough to roast a serf. In short, the library was a Gothic fantasy. ~ Lauren Willig

Books are better than television, the internet, or the computer for educating and maintaining freedom.
Books matter because they state ideas and then attempt to thoroughly prove them. They have an advantage precisely because they slow down the process, allowing the reader to internalize, respond, react and transform. The ideas in books matter because time is taken to establish truth, and because the reader must take the time to consider each idea and either accept it or, if he rejects it, to think through sound reasons for doing so. A nation of people who write and read is a nation with the attention span to earn an education and free society if they choose. ~ Oliver DeMille

Books are both our luxuries and our daily bread. ~ Henry Stevens

Books are a languid pleasure. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Our powder and arrows are going to run out on us some time. And so are our food and water and joie de vivre and good books and everything. Why not walk out now and get made into somebody's favourite slave? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy. ~ Terry Pratchett

I cannot perceive that you're still a girl. Ur kisses don't seem so innocent. They just drive me crazy!" #MilanoVeneziani. #ItalianPassion ~ Olga Goa

So the badger poked up the fire, poured himself another cup of tea, and went back to the History to read the curious story of the Fern Vale dwelves, a story (he suspected) that was mostly unknown to the Big Folk. Of course, that sort of thing wasn't at all unusual, for although the human residents of the Land between the Lakes thought they knew everything about their surroundings, and although scholarly books related the history, inventoried the animals and plants, and catalogued the folktales, people were aware of only a fraction of what went on around them. One was not criticizing when one said this; one was simply stating the fact. Humans, by and large, were ignorant of the mysteries of life and land. ~ Susan Wittig Albert

A lot of books are sold and given away as presents. But who actually reads and enjoy reading? ~ John Gimlette

My quarrel with him is, that his works contain nothing worth quoting; and a book that furnishes no quotations, is me judice, no book, - it is a plaything. ~ Thomas Love Peacock

And there are plays – and books and songs and poems and dances – that are perhaps upsetting or intricate or unusual, that leave you unsure, but which you think about perhaps the next day, and perhaps for a week, and perhaps for the rest of your life.

Because they aren't clean, they aren't neat, but there's something in them that comes from the heart, and, so, goes to the heart. ~ David Mamet

Mark Hopkins was one of the truest and best men that ever lived. He had a keen analytical mind; was thoroughly accurate, and took general supervision of the books, contracts, etc. He was strictly the office man, and never bought or sold anything. I always felt when I was in the East that our business in his hands was entirely safe. ~ Collis Potter Huntington