quotations about books
Book burning is a charming old custom, hallowed by antiquity. It has been practiced for centuries by fascists, communists, atheists, school children, rival authors, and tired librarians. Like everything of importance since the invention of the cloak and the shroud, its origins are cloaked in mystery and shrouded in secrecy. Some scholars believe that the first instance of book burning occurred in the Middle Ages, when a monk was trying to illuminate a manuscript. All agree that book burning was almost non-existent during the period when books were made of stone.
RICHARD ARMOUR
"How to Burn a Book," , A Safari into Satire
It's up to the parents to not only allow but encourage reading fun books. People tend to push books that are good for you, like broccoli instead of ice cream. But if you let them read Spider-Man--I sure did--they are going to move on to Ray Bradbury and Stephen King.
NORA ROBERTS
Time Magazine, Nov. 29, 2007
A book is a Fantastic Book, though time and space be commonplace enough, though the time be today and the place Camberwell, if only the mind perpetually travels, seeing one after another unexpected things in the consequences of human action or in the juxtaposition of emotions.
HILAIRE BELLOC
On Everything
How many good books suffer neglect through the inefficiency of their beginnings!
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"Marginalia"
Books! The chosen depositories of the thoughts, the opinions, and the aspirations of mighty intellects; like wondrous mirrors that have caught and fixed bright images of souls that have passed away; like magic lyres, whose masters have bequeathed them to the world, and which yet, of themselves, ring with unforgotten music, while the hands that touched their chords have crumbled into dust. Books! they are the embodiments and manifestations of departed minds--the living organs through which those who are dead yet speak to us.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Book publishing would be so much easier without the authors.
DAN BROWN
The Lost Symbol
Books are embalmed minds. They make the great of other days our present teachers.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
I would like to save all books, those that are banned, those that are burned, or forgotten with contempt by the mandarins who want to tell us what is good and what is bad. Every book has a soul ... and I believe every book is worth saving from either bigotry or oblivion.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"An interview with Carlos Ruiz Zafon", Book Browse
One cannot celebrate books sufficiently. After saying his best, still something better remains to be spoken in their praise. As with friends, one finds new beauties at every interview, and would stay long in the presence of those choice companions. As with friends, he may dispense with a wide acquaintance. Few and choice. The richest minds need not large libraries.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Of books in our time the variety is so voluminous, and they follow so fast from the press, that one must be a swift reader to acquaint himself even with their titles, and wise to discern what are worth reading.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Books were the sustenance of God. And His munitions.
RéGIS DEBRAY
God: An Itinerary
There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
What's happening in digital books generally is that a whole bunch of rights that you would effectively have with ordinary books -- like I could loan it to my friend, I could destroy it, I could copy a chapter out of it, I could read it to my children, I could sell it somebody else - all of those rights are erased in the digital context because these shrink wrap licenses and the code built into these books makes it impossible for you legally to give it to a friend, or to sell it to somebody afterward or to copy a chapter out of it or in this case, to read it to your child. So what they are doing is using contracting code to restrict the rights that you used to have. The reason they can do this is that copyright law has always permitted some amount of contracting in addition to the rights granted by copyright. The fact is people didn't waste their time entering into those contracts before because they were essentially unenforceable. You could, in principle, write whatever you want into the shrink wrap license selling the book, but what are they going to do? You can't give this to a friend, how are they going to police that? So because it is impossible to police, there is no reason to require it. But now the technology makes it so that you can begin to police it, so the copyright interest says, "We've always been able to add these restrictions. Now we're adding these restrictions and they should be as enforceable as they were before."
LAWRENCE LESSIG
"Code + Law: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig", OpenP2P, January 29, 2001
The popular books are the novels, dealing with life under all possible conditions, and they are widely read not only because they are entertaining, but also because they in a measure satisfy an unformulated belief that to see farther, to know all sorts of men, in an indefinite way, is a preparation for better social adjustment--for the remedying of social ills.
JANE ADDAMS
Democracy and Social Ethics
A book is a suicide postponed.
EMIL CIORAN
The Trouble with Being Born
I think a book that is over 400 pages should be split in two. I don't know that there's anything that interesting that can go on for 700 pages. I think that is a little bit indulgent.
CHRIS ABANI
The Boston Globe, Mar. 22, 2014
It is so very easy and so very pleasant, too, to read only books which lead to nothing, light and interesting books, and the more the better, that it is almost as difficult to wean ourselves from it as from the habit of chewing tobacco to excess, or of smoking the whole time, or of depending for stimulus upon tea or coffee or spirits.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
American Library Journal, 1876
What makes the success of many books consists in the affinity there is between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and those of the public.
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed.
ANNE RICE
The Witching Hour
In books we never find anything but ourselves. Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and we say the author is a genius.
THOMAS MANN
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