Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they’re amiable and sometimes not.

boo” in book.

Writing is about taking everyday observations, things which people see almost every day of their lives, and yet bringing it to their attention for the very first time.

I always seem to be reading several books at once.

Thank God for books and music and things I can think about.”–Charlie Gordon

Jacksonville has more public libraries than people who know how to read.

A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t isTo meet an antique bookIn just the dress his century wore;A privilege, I think,His venerable hand to take,And warming in our own,A passage back, or two, to makeTo times when...

There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference books. They are like understanding friends—always ready to meet your mood, always ready to change the subject when you have...

But I loved the library simply because it was a library. I love libraries. I like reading, but I love libraries. Being surrounded by books makes me feel safe, the way some people need trees...

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book…

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these...

A little library, growing larger every year, is an honourable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of...

The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting...

If your library is not “unsafe,” it probably isn’t doing its job.

I feel closer ties and more intimate bonds with certain characters in books, with certain images I’ve seen in engravings, than with many supposedly real people with the metaphysical absurdity known as ‘flesh and blood’....

Knowing that others want to read my writing is the greatest inspiration to write.

I have managed not to finish certain books. With barely a twinge of conscience, I hurl down what bores me or doesn’t give what I crave: ecstasy, transcendence, a thrill of mysterious connection. For, more...

Et voilà, mon passé n’est plus qu’un trou énorme. Mon présent: cette bonne au corsage noir qui rêve près du comptoir, ce petit bonhomme. Tout ce que je sais de ma vie, il me semble...

It’s a symbiotic process, writing. What I am makes the books—not part of me, all of me—and then the books themselves inform the sense of what I am. So the more I can be, the...

So many books, so little time

You can’t just walk away when you see a good book but to buy and own it.

A friend once told me that the real message Bram Stoker sought to convey in ‘Dracula’ is that a human being needs to live hundreds and hundreds of years to get all his reading done;...

All I could determine was that it must have been a nice thing to see if it was a house you were thinking about moving into. But not so nice if it was the house...

One of the most difficult things when you were trying to navigate the world of books was dealing with all the unreliable authors. They were so unbelievably tricky to keep track of. An author might...

Maybe Heaven will be a library. Then I will be able to finish my to-read list.

121.George Bernard Shaw – Plays and Prefaces122.Max Planck – Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography123.Henri Bergson – Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Creative Evolution; The Two...

We don’t want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don’t want to close a book with a...

That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third...

Lies Have expiry dates but the truth never expires

We’ll always need printed books that don’t mutate the way digital books do; we’ll always need places to display books, auditoriums for book talks, circles for story time; we’ll always need brick-and-mortar libraries.

I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some...

He kissed me for a long moment, holding my shoulders, perhaps to keep me from pressing my whole body against his. Then he tried to lift my bag.”My God,” he said. “What happened?””I found out...

I recall once seeing a commentary advertised as having been written in prison without recourse to other commentaries and by reliance on the Holy Spirit alone. I doubt whether those last two phrases are complementary....

No doubt my books too, like my mortal being, would eventually die, one day. But one has to resign oneself to dying. One accepts the thought that in ten years oneself, in a hundred years...

What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to...

[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship....

A censor is an expert in cutting remarks. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.

Yet the experience of reading a novel has certain qualities that remind us of the traditional apprehension of mythology. It can be seen as a form of meditation. Readers have to live with a novel...

The feedback I get is that my books are honest. I don’t sugar-coat anything. Life is really hard.

Many a man lives a burden to the Earth, but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

More books.” His eyes went wide. “You have, like, then books you just said you haven’t read.””Doesn’t mean I won’t get more books.” I smiled at is incredulous expression. “I haven’t been able to read...

Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say.Of course those who write short books have even less to say.

He’s at the library, I think. Safe and sound in his world of books… Maybe he’ll write one someday.

Perhaps they were looking for passion; perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel – a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something...

Wer niemals ganze Nachmittage lang mit glühenden Ohren und verstrubbeltem Haar über einem Buch saß und las und las und die Welt um sich her vergaß, nicht mehr merkte, daß er hungrig wurde oder fror...

mind-boggling” moments, when I would doubt myself and what I was writing. It has been said that we, ourselves, are our own worst critics.All the hard work had payed off though, and I created a...

I don’t think anybody should read anything except for fun because you won’t learn anything unless you enjoy it.

What sort of a book would you like to read next?” she asked.

I love the smell of a new book, but I prefer inhaling fresh bottles of ink and glue. They get me more lightheaded – unless I read the book.

Everybody comes to the library naked. That’s why they come here – to dress themselves in books.