You don’t read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil. Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
It is nice that nobody writes as they talk and that the printed language is different from the spoken otherwise you could not lose yourself in books and of course you do you completely do. Gertrude Stein
The Babar the Elephant book is sitting in front of me. I pick it up and start reading it. I remember reading it as a small Boy and enjoying it and imagining that I was friends with Babar, his constant Companion during all of his adventures. He went to the moon, I went with him. He fought Tomb Raiders in Egypt, I fought alongside him. He rescued his elephant girlfriend from Ivory Hunters on the Savanna, I coordinated the getaway. I loved that goddamn Elephant and I loved being his friend. In a childhood full of unhappiness and rage, Babar is one of the few pleasant memories that I have. Me and Babar, kicking some motherfucking ass. James Frey
I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time. Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf III
Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Virginia Woolf
It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything. Virginia Woolf
Never force yourself to read a book that you do not enjoy. There are so many good books in the world that it is foolish to waste time on one that does not give you pleasure. Atwood H Townsend, Good Reading
He had no money and no home; he lived entirely on the road of the racing circuit, sleeping in empty stalls, carrying with him only a saddle, his rosary, and his books ... The books were the closest thing he had to furniture, and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs. Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend
A good book is the purest essence of the human soul. Thomas Carlyle
Wherever books will be burned, men, also, in the end, are burned. Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856, German poet, Almansor, 1823
A great book is like great evil. Callimachus, Hellenistic poet and scholar
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; ― they are the life, the soul of reading; ― take them out of this book for instance, ― you might as well take the book along with them. Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one pair of stairs? For we are got no further yet than to the first landing, and there are fifteen steps down to the bottom; and for aught I know, as my father and my uncle Toby are in a talking humour, there may be as many chapters as steps; ― let that be as it will, Sir. I can no more help it that my destiny ― A sudden impulse comes across me ― drop the curtain, Shandy ― I drop it ― Strike a line here across the paper, Tristram ― I strike it ― and hey for a new chapter. ibid.
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;— they are the life, the soul of reading;— take them out of this book for instance,— you might as well take the book along with them. ibid.
Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another? ibid. gentleman
Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped at every corner. The public is but a generous patron who defrays the postage. Robert Louis Stevenson
If you are going to make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Wrong Box
Books – the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity. George Steiner
Choose an author as you choose a friend. Wentworth Dillon, Essay on Translated Verse, 1684
When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.
Later, with inch-thick specs,
Evil was just my lark:
Me and my cloak and fangs
Had ripping times in the dark.
The women I clubbed with sex!
I broke up them up like meringues.
Don’t read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who’s yellow and keeps the store,
Seems far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap. Philip Larkin, A Study of Reading Habits
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide. Rebecca West
Is it a book you would even wish your wife or your servants to read? Mervyn Griffith-Jones, re D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 1960
A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy. Edward P Morgan
Child! Do not throw this book about;
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest pleasure. Hilaire Belloc, 1870-1953
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers. Charles W Eliot
There’s nothing to match curling up with a good book when there’s a repair job to be done around the house. Joe Ryan
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. William Hazlitt
You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. Paul Sweeney
A good book is the best of friends, the same today and for ever. Martin Tupper
All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time. John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies, 1865
Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. ibid.
How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it. ibid.
We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other’s books out of circulating libraries! ibid.
Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. John Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849
One man is as good as another until he has written a book. Benjamin Jowett
Of all the inanimate objects, of all men’s creations, books are the nearest to us for they contain our very thoughts, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to the truth, and our persistent leanings to error. But most of all they resemble us in their precious hold on life. Joseph Conrad
Books: overrated, overpriced and not great in the bath. Victoria Coren, Observer article 11th October 2009