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Books Quotes by Michael Dirda

44 Books quotes by Michael Dirda

All Books quotes Michael Dirda’s page

Books help us grow in empathy and also make us question what we read. The reviewer enjoys describing novels in a friendly, chatty way that invites others to pick them up. He recalls a story of a comic who earned more than the funny man, showing how work can be surprising.

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I've always liked an easygoing, colloquial style. I like the kind of reviewer who is essentially a fellow reader, an enthusiast, a…

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Adventurous reading allows one to escape a little from the provincialities of one's home culture and the blinders of one's narrow self.

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I think of my own work as part of a decades-long conversation about books and reading with people I will mainly never…

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I am something of an aficionado of thrift stores. In my youth, I regularly searched their shelves for old books.

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None of us, of course, will ever read all the books we'd like, but we can still make a stab at it.

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Best selling authors are always worth listening to, even if you choose to ignore their advice.

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I'm an appreciator. I love all kinds of books, and I want others to love them, too.

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Mentoring is the last refuge of the older artist. With luck, disciples will keep one's books in print, one's reputation alive.

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My urge at Christmas time or Hanukkah-time or Kwanzaa-time is that people go to bookstores: that they walk around bookstores and look…

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I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others…

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In 1911, Edgar Rice Burroughs, having failed at everything else, decided to write a novel. He was then in his mid-thirties, married…

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When I was a boy in the late 1950s, the public library refused to stock books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. They were…

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This Is Not a Novel memorializes the treasures and detritus of one man's singularly cultured mind. (...) If you don't know Writer's…

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Digital texts are all well and good, but books on shelves are a presence in your life. As such, they become a…

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What I enjoy about reviewing and writing for newspapers and periodicals is simply the chance to talk about all kinds of books…

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My gift, if that's not too grandiose a term, is one for describing novels, biographies, and works of history in such a…

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“Books, by their very nature and variety, help us grow in empathy for others, in tolerance and awareness. But they should increase…

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“I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets, and enjoy seeing rows of hardcovers on my…

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“Despite the rising popularity of the downloadable e-text, I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets,…

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For years, I meant to read 'Arabian Sands', Wilfred Thesiger's account of two punishing camel journeys during the late 1940s across Southern…

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“I like first editions, though I’ll sometimes settle for a later printing if it’s within a year or two of the book’s…

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Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of…

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Many readers simply can't stomach fantasy. They immediately picture elves with broadswords or mighty-thewed barbarians with battle axes, seeking the bejeweled Coronet…

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Since I make my living as a literary journalist, not a book scout, I spend inordinate amounts of time either reading or…

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Books can be a source of solace, but I see them mainly as a source of pleasure, personal as well as esthetic.

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The world is a library of strange and wonderful books, and sometimes we just need to go prowling through the stacks.

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Books don't only furnish a room: they also make the best holiday gifts.

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Sometimes the very best of all summer books is a blank notebook. Get one big enough, and you can practice sketching the…

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People who've read my reviews know my tastes, know how I approach a book, know my background. I can write with believable…

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A reviewer's lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey's 'The Runaway Soul' despite…

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Not all of E. Nesbit's children's books are fantasies, but even the most realistic somehow seem magical. In her holiday world, nobody…

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Whatever Kurt Vonnegut's ultimate status will be in the annals of literature, he was important to a lot of people right now.…

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No matter how beautiful the paper, artwork, printing, and binding, I'm seldom drawn to a book unless it's by a writer I…

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Sad to say, multi-tasking is beyond me. I read one book at a time all the way through. If I'm reviewing the…

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Neither my mom nor my dad ever bought me any comic books. Certainly not for Christmas. I suspect that doing so would…

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I love the look of books published by the firm of Rupert Hart-Davis: They strike me as handsome, elegant, and inviting. I'll…

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Reading books might itself be a bit weird, but obviously okay, since books were part of school, and doing well in school…

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I long ago ran out of bookshelf space and so, like a museum with its art, simply rotate my books from the…

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I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that's the…

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I haven't read for pleasure in 35 years. I mean, I get a lot of pleasure from what I read... For me,…

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More by Michael Dirda

Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics -…

I sometimes lie awake at night and try to imagine what would be the best period in history to spend one's seventy-odd years.

To my mind, 'Dear Brutus' stands halfway between Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Into the Woods'. Like them,…

The goal of a just society should be to provide satisfying work with a living wage to all its citizens.

Most lyric poetry is about love, whether yearned after, fulfilled, or wistfully regretted; what isn't tends to consist of laments and cris du coeur…

“Books, by their very nature and variety, help us grow in empathy for others, in tolerance and awareness. But they should increase our skepticism…

My gift, if that's not too grandiose a term, is one for describing novels, biographies, and works of history in such a way that…

Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of emotion, content…

My wife tells me I should check out 'Downton Abbey', but I gather that series might be almost too intense for my temperate nature.

A reviewer's lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey's 'The Runaway Soul' despite the novel's…

I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that's the tougher job.…

From the late 19th to the early 20th century, the December issue of almost any general-interest magazine regularly featured a holiday horror or two.

Neither my mom nor my dad ever bought me any comic books. Certainly not for Christmas. I suspect that doing so would have violated…

For me, the two weeks between Christmas and Twelfth Night have come to be reserved for desultory reading. The pressure of the holiday is…

I've always liked an easygoing, colloquial style. I like the kind of reviewer who is essentially a fellow reader, an enthusiast, a fan.