We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century – the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?” – lies where we have never suspected it…...

The taste for books was an early one. As a child he was sometimes found at midnight by a page still reading. They took his taper away, and he bred glow-worms to serve his purpose....

What we call life is only talk of nature.

Materializations are often best produced in rooms where there are books. I cannot think of any time when materialization was in any way hampered by the presence of books.

They grew; they did not talk about growing.

As it stands there is a very strong argument that as the book trade becomes increasingly corporate it’s our literary heritage that is at risk – a vital part of our culture.

Faith is a question of eyesight; even the blind can see that.

My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary....

He did not profess to anybody how to reach others without professing.

You learn almost as much about a thinker from what he reads—in particular, what he likes and what he disdains—as from what he writes himself.

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and...

Every time I have a bad day, I’ll just find a corner, bring out my book and then everything starts to feel better.

The most important things in our intimate lives can’t be discussed with strangers, except in books.

I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction...

He enjoyed reading and writing. He liked words. Words didn’t shout or make loud noises, which pretty much defined the rest of his family. They didn’t involve getting muddy in the freezing cold. They didn’t...

Ukipata matatizo kumbuka kwamba Yesu alipata matatizo pia, na kutokana na matatizo hayo mimi na wewe tulipata uhuru. Soma Biblia. Soma nyimbo katika kitabu cha Zaburi zinazomsifu Mungu katika kipindi cha matatizo. Funga na kuomba...

When I was in kindergarten, I entered a competition and read 52 books in a week.

Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory… In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of...

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

… so this is for us.This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and loveand this is for doing it even if no one will ever knowbecause the beauty is in the...

I’m a writer. In Latin America, they say I’m a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here,...

Books” – Snell smiled – “are a kind of magic.

Idea Stores.” – p.56

Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today.

You said you were allowed to lose it,’ some part of her reminded herself. ‘Not yet, not yet.

…I tell myself it does not matter what one reads–favorite authors, particular themes–as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.

Radical Muslims fly planes into buildings. Radical Christians kill abortion doctors. Radical Atheists write books.

This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow From my books...

What I like most about reading is I can read in minutes what it took the author hours to write. What I like most about writing is readers can read in minutes what it took...

The lady who works in the grocery store at the corner of my block is called Denise, and she’s one of America’s great unpublished novelists. Over the years she’s written forty-two romantic novels, none of...

This is the paradox of the power of literature: it seems that only when it is persecuted does it show its true powers, challenging authority, whereas in our permissive society it feels that it is...

Hay cuatro cosas viejas que son buenas: viejos amigos, para conversar; leña vieja, para calentarse; viejos vinos, para beber; y viejos libros para leer.

Sleep is good, he said, And books are better.

I see something of a comrade in you. You like a book. Silent revelation on a page pleases you better than a self-bolstering display of verbal spillage. What do you see in me?

Reader’s Bill of Rights1. The right to not read 2. The right to skip pages 3. The right to not finish 4. The right to reread 5. The right to read anything 6. The right...

To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that...

I always thought it was Mo Be Dick. I know Mo, and he is a dick.

[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.

Books are the ultimate way for writers to reach immortality.

God bless ladies with costly, tasteful clothes and touching, dirty fingernails that champion gifted, foreign poets and decorate the library in beautiful, melancholy fashion! My God, this universe is nothing to snicker at!

Don’t forget, and don’t let your reader forget, that the small world in which you have held him for the last hour or two hasn’t ended. Be aware, and make him aware, that tomorrow all...

But here’s a great thing about stories: they can be retold.

This capacity to fold the completely weird into daily life, to make the aliens ourselves, is a quality I look for in a good, weird book.

Besides, most of the books I like involve people I could never play in a million years.

I enjoy sharing my books as I do my friends, asking only that you treat them well and see them safely home.

I took the volume to a table, opened its soft, ivory pages… and fell into it as into a pool during dry season.

No book can ever be finished. While working on it we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it

This is what books only aimed to do and never could. Give you the glint of someone else’s sunrise, what living is really like, you get old and it hurts to bend your elbow; your...