Book famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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Television is a constant stream of fact, opinions, lies, moral dilemmas, plots: an infinitely complex and sophisticated torrent of information. How could it not make you cleverer? The only people who ever thought television rotted the brain and made kids dumb were those with a vested interest in other ways of learning, or those who were intellectually insecure, usually about books.
-- A. A. Gill -
An American has invented a remote control that will turn off any telly within a 20ft radius. What a marvellous device! What a splendid invention! What a really helpful and improving way of devoting your time to building something that turns off culture. Next week, I'm instigating Burn a Book Week, to encourage even more conversation. I've come up with a fantastic little device which I'll call a box of matches.
-- A. A. Gill -
The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief - call it what you will - than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.
-- A. A. Milne -
To her- Hand in hand we come Christopher Robin and I To lay this book in your lap. Say you're surprised? Say you like it? Say it's just what you wanted? Because it's yours- because we love you.
-- A. A. Milne -
A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one's movements; it should aim rather at giving salient account of some particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation.
-- A. C. Benson -
One has to ascertain the right path for his activities by following in the footsteps of great saintly persons and books of knowledge under the guidance of a spiritual master.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Books are the basis; purity is the force; preaching is the essence; utility is the principle.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Nature is a book of many pages and each page tells a fascinating story to him who learns her language. Our fertile valleys and craggy mountains recite an epic poem of geologic conflicts. The starry sky reveal gigantic suns and space and time without end.
-- A. E. Douglass -
Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
-- A. E. Housman -
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.
-- A. E. Housman -
Chum was a British boy's weekly which, at the end of the year was bound into a single huge book; and the following Christmas parents bought it as Christmas presents for male children.
-- A. E. van Vogt -
The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity...
-- A. Edward Newton -
My depth of purse is not so great Nor yet my bibliophilic greed, That merely buying doth elate: The books I buy I like to read: Still e'en when dawdling in a mead, Beneath a cloudless summer sky, By bank of Thames, or Tyne, or Tweed, The books I read — I like to buy.
-- A. Edward Newton -
As life tends to become more and more distracting, let us firmly hold on to books.
-- A. Edward Newton -
The selection of a book-plate is such a serious matter.
-- A. Edward Newton -
Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired (by passionate devotion to them) produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can peradventure read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity ... we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance.
-- A. Edward Newton -
In very clear and available language, this book details how to recognize the inner critic and how to deal effectively with it. Byron Brown's presentation is useful for any individual who wishes to be free from the inner suffering and coercion of this ancient foe of our humanity, but it is specifically directed to those interested and engaged in the inner journey toward realization and enlightenment.
-- A. H. Almaas -
It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?
-- A. J. Jacobs -
I always thought the name of Utah’s major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word “desert.†But no, Deseret is the “land of the honeybee,†according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years.
-- A. J. Jacobs -
My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it'll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It's like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.
-- A. J. Jacobs -
Giulia Melucci has written a wonderfully funny and moving book. It's like Eat, Pray, Love, with recipes.
-- A. J. Jacobs -
I dont really take anything from home except some U.S. magazines and books and definitely some U.S. music. There are just certain songs that remind me of home.
-- A. J. McLean -
History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
There is nothing nicer than nodding off while reading. Going fast asleep and then being woken by the crash of the book on the floor, then saying to yourself, well it doesn't matter much. An admirable feeling.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.
-- A. N. Wilson -
If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year.
-- A. N. Wilson -
This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of.
-- A. N. Wilson -
I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help.
-- A. N. Wilson -
The movie, like the book before it, is an expertly built machine for the mass production of tears. Directed by Josh Boone ('Stuck in Love') with scrupulous respect for John Green's best-selling young-adult novel, the film sets out to make you weep -- not just sniffle or choke up a little, but sob until your nose runs and your face turns blotchy. It succeeds.
-- A. O. Scott -
What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books.
-- A. S. Byatt -
Do I do as false prophets do and puff air into simulacra? Am I a Sorcerer--like Macbeth's witches--mixing truth and lies in incandescent shapes? Or am I a kind of very minor scribe of a prophetic Book--telling such truth as in me lies, with aid of such fiction as I acknowledge mine, as Prospero acknowledged Caliban.
-- A. S. Byatt -
I have known men to hazard their fortunes, go long journeys halfway about the world, forget friendships, even lie, cheat, and steal, all for the gain of a book.
-- A. S. W. Rosenbach -
After love, book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all.
-- A. S. W. Rosenbach -
Very young children eat their books, literally devouring their contents. This is one reason for the scarcity of first editions of Alice in Wonderland and other favorites of the nursery.
-- A. S. W. Rosenbach -
I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.
-- A. Scott Berg -
I read my first book on Woodrow Wilson at age 15, and I was hooked.
-- A. Scott Berg -
Plant trees. They give us two of the most crucial elements for our survival: oxygen and books.
-- A. Whitney Brown -
There's a lot we should be able to learn from history. And yet history proves that we never do. In fact, the main lesson of history is that we never learn the lessons of history. This makes us look so stupid that few people care to read it. They'd rather not be reminded. Any good history book is mainly just a long list of mistakes, complete with names and dates. It's very embarrassing.
-- A. Whitney Brown -
If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.
-- A.M. Homes -
Books tell you more about their owners than the owners do.
-- A.M. Homes -
I once jokingly told someone that every book is like a relationship. They're four or five years long - that's not so bad. They're serious. They demand a lot of attention. But I remember thinking that I wanted to have one with someone who's not so crazy and peculiar and demanding.
-- A.M. Homes -
There's not a day that I don't work on vocals, have vocal coaches, go to acting classes, read books.
-- Aaron Carter -
You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.
-- Aaron Copland -
Chris [Nolan] comes at this with such a different take on Batman, so I didn't feel that I had to be true to any other actor playing this role. Of course, I read the comic books. His relationships with Lt. Gordon and with Batman, with Gotham City, those really helped me the most.
-- Aaron Eckhart -
I have done scenes as Harvey Two-Face. It's interesting. I won't tell you exactly what we're going for, but I think that I can say that it will use all of today's technology to create this character. He's going to be interesting, and I think that's what makes this character important in the movie-you get to see him as he was before, as in the comic books. Harvey is a very good guy in the comic books. He's judicious. He cares. He's passionate about what he loves and then he turns into this character. So you will see that in this film.
-- Aaron Eckhart -
So I went in front of the judge, and I had my St. Jude prayer book in my pocket and my St. Jude medal. And I'm standing there and that judge said I was found guilty, so he sentenced me to what the law prescribed: one to 14 years.
-- Aaron Neville -
I didn't follow the whole 'X-Men' story because it got too complicated. I'd pick up a comic book and have no idea what was going on.
-- Aaron Stanford -
My life has been the antithesis of that book 'The Secret'. I've always been interested in doing what I do. I love storytelling and I really enjoyed acting, but it never seemed like a realistic thing.
-- Aaron Stanford -
But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
-- Aaron Swartz -
Books are totally useless unless you take their advice. If you just keep reading them, thinking "that's so insightful! that changes everything," but never actually doing anything different, then pretty quickly the feeling will wear off and you'll start searching for another book to fill the void.
-- Aaron Swartz -
I read everything I could find: books and online. Sometimes bigger revelations came to me through finer details or something that you wouldn't pick up just by surface reading.
-- Abbie Cornish -
One Best Book is Equal To Hundred Good Friends But One Good Friend is Equal To A Library.
-- Abdul Kalam -
Muslims are not bloodthirsty people. Islam is a religion of peace that forbids the killing of the innocent. Islam also accepts the Prophets, whether those prophets are Mohammed, God's peace and blessing be upon Him, or Moses or the other prophets of the Books.
-- Abdullah of Saudi Arabia -
I want to open myself. ... I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus. I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil. I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil. I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!
-- Abigail Williams -
Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
-- Abraham Cowley -
Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
-- Abraham Cowley -
Come, my best friends, my best books, and lead me on.
-- Abraham Cowley -
May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.
-- Abraham Cowley -
Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me.
-- Abraham Cowley -
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
But for this book we could not know right from wrong.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
All I have learned, I learned from books.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from The Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
If you wish to be a lawyer, attach no consequence to the place you are in, or the person you are with; but get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
As a general rule, I abstain from reading reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Deliberately or not, every author is of course present in every book he or she writes - even in a scientific text.
-- Abraham Pais -
One of the things I learned, one of the strangest things, is how to think. There was nothing else to do. I couldn't see people, or go for a walk in the forest. All I had was my head and my books, and I thought a lot.
-- Abraham Pais -
What did it say when a man had fewer clothes than books?
-- Abraham Verghese -
There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, 'You must read this.' I've always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America, a discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.
-- Abraham Verghese -
So we want an Islamic state where Islamic law is not just in the books but enforced, and enforced with determination. There is no space and no room for democratic consultation. The Shariah is set and fixed, so why do we need to discuss it anymore? Just implement it!
-- Abu Bakar Bashir -
On the Day of Judgment, the servant of Allah will be given his book of deeds, where he finds rewards for things he did not do, so he asks: O My Lord, where did I get these deeds? So Allah replies to him saying: These are because of the people who backbited you and you did not know about it.
-- Abu Umamah al Bahili -
Corporation 2020 is an indispensable contribution to the global transformation of finance and corporations as humanity re-integrates centuries of knowledge and continues its inevitable transition from the first Industrial Era... Pavan Sukhdev is a powerful standard-bearer leading us to the cleaner, knowledge-rich Green Economy globally, and this book provides a benchmark and guide to this better future for humanity.
-- Achim Steiner -
Looking at the poems of John Gray when I saw the tiniest rivulet of text meandering through the very largest meadow of margin, I suggested to Oscar Wilde that he should go a step further than these minor poets; he should publish a book all margin; full of beautiful, unwritten thoughts.
-- Ada Leverson -
Comic books aren't nerdy. You'd have to be an idiot to think computers are nerdy.
-- Adam Brody -
No, I had not read any other comedian's book. Not that I don't enjoy other comedians; I'm just not a reader.
-- Adam Carolla -
As I said in my last book, birds are mean. They're the only pet that, when they escape, the owners are relieved. You can tell a species is evil by doing this simple math. If my blond lab Molly was the size of T-Rex, that would just mean more kibble, more work for the gardener in the backyard, and a harder time moving her to my wife's side of the bed at night. If birds were the size of a T-Rex, the streets would be littered with human remains.
-- Adam Carolla -
When I came back to Washington to be The Times' chief congressional correspondent in 1991, I was looking for a book subject, and Ted Kennedy stood out for two reasons.
-- Adam Clymer -
Another thing that's quite different in writing a book as a practicing newspaperman is that if you look at what you've written the next morning and you think you didn't get it quite right, you can fix it.
-- Adam Clymer -
Perhaps we should keep our monsters about us, lest we become them ourselves.
-- Adam Dunn -
I am not a book collector, and I am not fussy about particular editions. As long as the words are there I don't mind.
-- Adam Foulds -
Like an unexpected wet mop in the face of tired complacency, The Sovereignty Solution works on the receptive mind as a pry bar works on a tightly sealed box. Written with courage and passion, this is a book whose often counterintuitive clarity shakes entombed assumptions like an earthquake. Whether you end up convinced or not, you will never think about American national security the same way ever again.
-- Adam Garfinkle -
Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don’t exist.
-- Adam Gopnik -
Most people believe that great leaders are distinguished by their ability to give compelling answers. This profound book shatters that assumption, showing that the more vital skill is asking the right questions…. Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read—without question.
-- Adam Grant -
The unadmitted reason why traditional readers are hostile to e-books is that we still hold the superstitious idea that a book is like a soul, and that every soul should have its own body.
-- Adam Kirsch -
Eric Schlosser's book on the economy and strategies of the fast-food business should be read by anyone who likes to take their children to fast-food restaurants. I shall certainly never do that again. He employs a long, cold burn, a quiet and impassioned accumulation of detail, with calm, wit and clarity. (...) Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism, readable, reliable and extremely carefully done.
-- Adam Nicolson -
Man, that's the only kind of book I like – one that's so real you want to find out everything there is to know about the person who wrote it, like how tall he is and what kind of music he likes and whether or not he really went through all the stuff he was writing about.
-- Adam Rapp -
One night I couldn't sleep. It was like 2:00 in the morning. I was thinking, 'What can I do?' I'm watching TV. I'm like, 'Let me do something else.' I'm not going to fall asleep for a few hours. What are my hobbies? There was the masturbation option. I skipped that because just knowing my kids are down the hall I felt psychotic. So, I went with watching more TV. I couldn't come up with anything. I was going, 'God, read a book.' Then I was like this, 'Where do I keep the books?' I've got nothing to do but watch TV.
-- Adam Sandler -
Among the older records, we find chapter after chapter of which we can read the characters, and make out their meaning: and as we approach the period of man's creation, our book becomes more clear, and nature seems to speak to us in language so like our own, that we easily comprehend it. But just as we begin to enter on the history of physical changes going on before our eyes, and in which we ourselves bear a part, our chronicle seems to fail us-a leaf has been torn out from nature's record, and the succession of events is almost hidden from our eyes.
-- Adam Sedgwick -
Today I fell asleep reading a book. The book is called INSOMNIA. I win.
-- Adam Young -
Gabriel Levin's book is a journey through time and through entrenched animosities of the Middle East. What's astonishing and refreshing is his ability to combine the reporter's perspective with a deep knowledge of poetry, including pre-Islamic Arab poems. A brilliant poet is at work here-a poet in the rugged landscape of conflict and pain.
-- Adam Zagajewski -
Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Hoping to instill my love of learning in other children, I taught my first class at a local elementary school the year my first book, 'Flying Fingers,' debuted; since then, I have spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world.
-- Adora Svitak -
What I think is interesting is that the more you do, you have to invent a book of rules of what you can do and what you can't do. And the very real danger is that if your book of rules becomes a book of cliches.
-- Adrian Lyne
