If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.
Terry PratchettBiography lends to death a new terror.
Oscar WildeThe undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.
William ShakespeareDoubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.
William ShakespeareFor a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.
Ernest HemingwayIf to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes‘ palaces.
William ShakespeareIn my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.
Brene BrownBroadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
Winston ChurchillAge appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
Francis BaconI shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaMy favourite poem is the one that starts ‚Thirty days hath September‘ because it actually tells you something.
Groucho MarxBooks serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.
Abraham LincolnO Day of days when we can read! The reader and the book, either without the other is naught.
Ralph Waldo EmersonAs far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.
Terry PratchettLiterature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.
Oscar WildeIt was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.
Kurt VonnegutI read poetry to save time.
Marilyn MonroeThe good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
Oscar WildeThe chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
Samuel JohnsonI know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
VoltaireShakespeare didn’t work at all for me.
Charles BukowskiOnce upon a time, novelists of the 19th century, such as Charles Dickens, published in serial form.
Margaret AtwoodIt is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered.
J. R. R. TolkienI read all the time, and I’m often struck by something I’m reading.
Alice MunroI just feel that ‚The Color Purple,‘ which was my 10th book, was a true gift from my ancestors.
Alice WalkerThere would be no Sherlock Holmes if it were not for serial publication.
Margaret AtwoodThe connection between psychology, mythology, and literature is as important as the connection between psychology and biology and the hard sciences.
Jordan PetersonI don’t read books much.
LeBron JamesLet blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
Warren BuffettIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Charles DickensI spend a lot of time reading.
Bill GatesThe first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.
Huey NewtonLiterature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.
C. S. LewisA room without books is like a body without a soul.
Marcus Tullius CiceroThe poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.
David HareIn the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
John SteinbeckOver the objections, where they sound like squealing pigs, over the objections of Romney and all his allies, we passed some of the toughest Wall Street regulations in history, turning Wall Street back into the allocator of capital it always has been and no longer a casino. And they want to repeal it.
Joe BidenI cannot live without books.
Thomas JeffersonI never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.
EpicurusA book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.
Franz KafkaThere is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
Thomas CarlyleWhatever came to mind, whatever came to hand, I would read.
Stephen KingLet’s embrace being not normal!
Angelina JolieBooks that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
Samuel JohnsonIf literature isn’t everything, it’s not worth a single hour of someone’s trouble.
Jean-Paul SartreEarly on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn’t be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.
Maya AngelouGeography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.
John F. KennedyBooks are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
Henry David ThoreauYou can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.
Samuel JohnsonNine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.
Benjamin DisraeliA reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.
Margaret AtwoodDickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page.
Terry PratchettA truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
Henry David ThoreauAll right, then, I’ll go to hell.
Mark TwainWords without thoughts never to heaven go.
William ShakespeareThis is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.
Virginia WoolfA home without books is a body without soul.
Marcus Tullius CiceroGive me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.
William ShakespeareThe reason why I am proud of my part in the punk movement is that I think it really did implant a message that was already there. The hippies told it to me, but punk made it something cool for people to stand up for, which is that we do not believe government, that we are against government.
Vivienne WestwoodJane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.
J. K. Rowling