Steinsaltz Books Quotes

People need books like zombies need brains. ~ Patricia Bray

His money went largely toward books, which to him were like sacred objects, providing ballast for his mind. ~ Michelle Obama

If the story is in you, it has to come out. ~ Mopelola Adeniyi

Books are influential in proportion to their obscurity, provided that the obscurity be that of inexpressible Realities. The Bible is the most obscure book in the world. He must be a great fool who thinks he understands the plainest chapter of it. ~ Coventry Patmore

As I stepped onto the gloomy landing a word formed in my mind: two syllables, starts with a V and rhymes with dire. I froze in place. Nightingale said that everything was true, after a fashion, and that had to include vampires, didn't it? I doubted they were anything like they were in books and on TV, and one thing was for certain - they absolutely weren't going to sparkle in the sunlight. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington - wasn't nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington. ~ Malcolm X

Readers, on the other hand, have at least 7.5 books going all the time. Actually, the number of books a reader takes on is usually directly related to the number of bathrooms he has in his home and office. I am working on a survey that will show that, over a lifetime, readers are in bathrooms seven years and three months longer than nonreaders. ~ Calvin Miller

great books are the ones we need ~ Charles Bukowski

She and I would trade books, talk endlessly, drink cheap whiskey, engage in unremarkable sex. You know, the stuff of everyday. ~ Haruki Murakami

There is something nice about a library, isn't there?" Mr. Curtis said. He nodded and took in the familiar scenery. "The scent of ink and worn, dusty pages. ~ Ilana Waters

Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts. ~ Jo Walton

These books ... , she begins, and stops. I am frightened for her, for myself decades from now, struggling to retain dignity with two strangers as they take away my books. I can see the straight line to her grave, to mine. ~ Deborah Meyler

She kept a stack of books near the tub so she could read in the bath, even though the edges of the pages turned moldy. She read on trains and on buses, which often made her late as she was forever missing her stop. ~ Alice Hoffman

Reading will give you lasting pleasure. ~ First Lady Laura Bush

Bicycling beyond the Divide did what all great books do: it told me about me. In its tale of a journey made by two different men-both of them Daryl Farmer-this book offers us not only moving vistas and meaningful people, but also hope, that rarest of literary commodities these days. I didn't want this to end. ~ Bret Lott

Wolgast recalled when he'd come down here with his friends to buy candy and comic books. Back then, a spinning wire rack had stood by the front door: Tales from the Crypt, Fantastic Four, the Dark Knight series, Wolgast's favorite. ~ Justin Cronin

Sometimes life is like that, you know. It smacks
us when we're down. The brave get back up. At least, they do in the
books. ~ Shannon Lee Alexander

People do judge books by their covers; it's human nature. They react to the way you look before they hear a single word that comes out of your mouth. ~ Jeff Garvin

he made me kinky about books: he managed to teach me – to this day, I don't know how – that books were not just a thing like that – I mean, just books – but somebody else's mind opened up for me to look into, and he taught me the habit, later on, of actually buying then! Yes – I mean real books, like the serious paperbacks, which must have been unknown among the kids up in the Harrow Road those days, who thought a book's an SF or a Western, if they thought it's anything. ~ Colin MacInnes

I love smart commercial fiction. Susan Isaacs, for example and the readers who interest me are, in the preponderance, women. I am one of them; I like the books they like. ~ Beth Gutcheon

eBooks are just digital copies of analog books. Convenient, yes. But we have the technology now to rethink what a book is. ~ David Conger

I was breaking down, wanting to fade away and cry, yet I feared ever being invisible again. My head lowered to conceal my humiliation behind a curtain of hair where I trembled as if sobbing.
"Hey, Gwen, it's okay. It's okay. Calm down."
I yearned to feel Daniel's soft touch meet my temple and then trace along my ear, brushing back the hairs from my face. What I wanted was the comfort his caress always afforded me. He moved as if he would grant my wish, realizing at the last moment that neither of us possessed the power to touch the other.
"Your hair, Gwen."
I refused to do what he wanted. I didn't care for him to see the shame plainly visible in my features. But the next thing I knew, his blue eyes were staring up at me from the ground, a glare reflecting off his glasses. The guy had dropped his books to fall over for a clear view of my face. His desperation made me laugh.
"It's going to be okay, Gwen, I promise."
- from "Phantom's Veil ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Heartache may be bad for the soul, but it's great for bookshops. It's when we are at our lowest romantic ebb that we are likely to do the bulk of our life's reading. Adolescents who can't get a date are in a uniquely privileged position: they will have the perfect chance to get grounding in world literature. There is perhaps an important connection between love and reading, there is perhaps a comparable pleasure offered by both.

A feeling of connection may be at the root of it. There are books that speak to us, no less eloquently - but more reliably - than our lovers. They prevent the morose suspicion that we do not fully belong to the human species, that we lie beyond comprehension. Our embarrassments, our sulks, our feelings of guilt, these phenomena may be conveyed on a page in a way that affords us with a sense of self-recognition. The author has located words to depict a situation we thought ourselves alone in feeling, and for a few moments, we are like two lovers on an early dinner date thrilled to discover how much they share (and unable to touch much of the seafood linguine in front of them, so busy are they fathoming the eyes opposite), we may place the book down for a second and stare at its spine with a wry smile, as if to say, "How lucky I ran into you. ~ Alain De Botton

My alma mater was books, a good library ... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. ~ Malcolm X

We cannot get away from the infinite. It stares us in the face whether we look at atoms or stars, or at the becauses behind the becauses, stretching back through eternity. Flat-earth science has no more use for it than the flat-earth theologians had in the Dark Ages; but a true science of life must let infinity in, and never lose sight of it. In two earlier books I have tried to show that throughout the ages the great innovators in the history of science had always been aware of the transparency of phenomena towards a different order of reality, of the ubiquitous presence of the ghost in the machine -even such a simple machine as a magnetic compass or a Leyden jar. Once a scientist loses the sense of mystery, he can be an excellent technician, but he ceases to be a savant. ~ Arthur Koestler

How do you tell someone like Pete that these kinds of friendships don't last, that they weren't made to last more than the summer even in the best of circumstances, and these certainly haven't been the best. That some friends aren't meant to be, except in stories, or books. You miss a penalty shot and no one wants to talk to you, and maybe you don't want to talk to them either. You want your own oblivion, and they don't understand. You don't answer their texts or even answer the messages of the one or two who venture to call. None of this has much to do with Peter, but you know you won't be friends with him past tomorrow. ~ Caroline Bock

The only difference between writers and people who don't write is that writers aren't afraid to display their demons. ~ Carla H. Krueger

Do you really know the living Jesus - not from books but from being with Him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words He speaks to you? ... The devil may try to use the hurts of life, and sometimes our own mistakes - to make you feel it is impossible that Jesus really loves you, is really cleaving to you. This is a danger for all of us. And so sad, because it is completely the opposite of what Jesus is really wanting, waiting to tell you. Not only that He loves you, but even more - He longs for you. ~ Mother Teresa

Autism, is part of my child, it's not everything he is. My child is so much more than a diagnosis. ~ S.L. Coelho

What did the heroines in dramas and books do in such circumstances?

Frequently, it seemed, they would use their feminine wiles upon their male captors, promising them amorous attention and then turning the tables upon the foe when the moment was right (But before, of course, sacrificing anything like their virtue for the cause).

Bridget hadn't been an agent of the Spirearch for very long, but she felt that she had the concept sufficiently surrounded to see that such a ploy was unlikely to work. Even if Ciriaco had been amenable to such a thing, he had no real reason to release her from her bonds, now, did he? And, in point of fact, what captor with any professionalism at all would be taken in by such a ploy in the first place?

Besides, Bridget was not at all sure that she had any feminine wiles. And even if she did, she felt certain that they would not function as flawlessly in life as they did in tales and dramas. ~ Jim Butcher

The best sci-fi stories use the fantastical to remind us of the reality of who we are today, the hope of who we may become tomorrow, and the shame of who we were yesterday. ~ Julio Alexi Genao

It's my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I've written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don't know. ~ Don DeLillo