Books Quotes · Page 559

I always wanted to be a cowboy. But alas! I was burdened early with certain inescapable obligations to world literature.

— Edward Abbey

“Literature is my Utopia...No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends”

— Helen Keller

... the habit of literature [is] the best defense against believing the half-truths of ideologues and the lies of demagogues.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

“I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day; a novel should not be interrupted.”

— Francois Mauriac

Cookbooks bear the same relation to real books that microwave food bears to your grandmother?s.

— Andrei Codrescu

But the longer I'm in the business, you see a lot of times these screenplays have been rewritten 5 times and you're…

— Edward Burns

When people cannot write good literature it is perhaps natural that they should lay down rules how good literature should be written.

— George Saintsbury

The writer of stories or of novels settles on men and imitates them; he exhausts the possibilities of his characters.

— Salvatore Quasimodo

“An author who gives a manager or publisher any rights in his work except those immediately and specifically required for its publication…

— George Bernard Shaw

These are the technicalities. The jetes and pirouettes.. but the music of the dance lies in the subtle signals between the steps:…

— Jessica Maxwell

There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject; we…

— Michel de Montaigne

And if thy heart be straight with God then every creature shall be to thee a mirror of life and a book…

— Thomas a Kempis

People who were born alone are defined by feelings like "Who's gonna be with me when I die? Who will ever understand…

— Laurie Anderson

When you're looking around for metaphor or simile, I do think it's often helpful to keep inside the world of the book,…

— Leigh Newman

“I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my…

— Dorothy Allison

“Writers live with fear. Some writers cannot deal with the fear, and so they quit or refuse to publish. In order to…

— Patrick Mcmanus

“Just as all writers were beginners once, so were all novels. They all went through rough stages, even the ones by our…

— Roz Morris

I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry…

— Laurell K. Hamilton

“A sunny nature? A light heart? I have never been so insulted. Light-hearted is a short step from witless in my book.…

— Mary Ann Shaffer

“I now saw, with great dismay, that what I had been carrying all this time was not a bowl but a book.…

— C.S. Lewis

“[Public] libraries should be open to all—except the censor. [Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960] ”

— John F. Kennedy

I was passionate about reading from an early age, and I would always be carrying a different book each week.

— Ashwin Sanghi

There is no book of mine that I reject. That does not mean that I find them good.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

At the day of judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done.

— Anonymous

“There is no other escape like a book. Reading expands your mind and opens your world to a myriad of possibilities.”

— Fran Veal

I'm not a fan of 'Gone With the Wind.' I didn't like the movie. I didn't like the book.

— Octavia Spencer

In a way, a jail is a place where you can rest, read books and live with yourself.

— Benazir Bhutto

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.

— Amos Bronson Alcott

Right now I'm singing along to books on tape. I typically pop in something like Stephen King's 'The Stand,' and I love…

— Amy Poehler

I read science books, chemistry books, history books. I read that stuff for fun.

— Rick Harrison

Writing the middle of a novel is a lot like driving through Texas. You think it's never going to end, and the…

— Carolyn Wheat

...nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book... ...

— Anonymous

All good American literature is always interested in people who are ambiguously heroic, like Gatsby.

— John Green

“For under scrutiny you will find that even an open book can have a surprise scribbled in its margins.”

— Violet Haberdasher

For the price of a couple of Happy Meals, you can buy a digital textbook and stop your child from having to…

— Osman Rashid

A classic is a book that survives the circumstances that made it possible yet alone keeps those circumstances alive.

— Alfred Kazin

I need to have some depth in my characters. That's why they are all Bengalis. I can't imagine writing a book with…

— Upamanyu Chatterjee

Readers always seem to think that the author has some control over the design of their books.

— Anonymous

My grandfather and mother were school teachers, so there was always some discussion around books.

— Sudha Murty

Learning and literature have a way of outlasting the civilization that made them.

— Dorothy L. Sayers