Book Quotes About Books

Books and ideas are like blood; they need to circulate, and they keep us alive.

Then, with a handful of pages left, I started to dread the fact that this world that I loved was coming to an end. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I read slowly, just savoring the scenes.

I was skeptical about soulmates, but could believe in bookmates, two beings bound by a passion for reading.

But one can always read Austen.

Reading Jane Austen was making him identify with Darcy and the thunderclap power of physical attraction that flies in the face of one’s usual judgment.

Reading, she now understood, had been her own choice of rebellion. A most private activity, it was the perfect alibi for a young woman in a demanding household like theirs.

Sometimes she craved a little danger. And that was why she had book club.

“We’re a book club,” Maryellen said. “What are we supposed to do? Read him to death? Use strong language?”

“..one thing I learned from all these books: it pays to be paranoid.

It also meant she thought of books as medication and sanctuary and the source of all good things. Nothing yet had proven her wrong.

Nina had looked around and realized she would never run out of things to read, and that certainty filled her with peace and satisfaction. It didn’t matter what hit the fan; as long as there were unread books in the world, she would be fine.

Being able to return to the books was a sanctuary for my heart. And a joy bolted free, lessening my own grievances, forgiving spent youth and dying dreams lost to a hard life, the hard land, and to folks’ hard thoughts and partialities.

Their hunger for books could teach them of a better life free of the hunger, but without food they’d never live long enough or have the strength to find it.

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to “I hate to read new books,” and I hollered “Comrade!” to whoever owned it before me.

Buying a book you’ve never read is like buying a dress you’ve never tried on

Writing does not exist unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different from a novel, from a chapter, from a line.

A book becomes a living thing only when it interacts with a reader.

Gil collected them for the handwritten marginalia and doodles that marked the pages, for the forgotten ephemera used as bookmarks.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.

Of course I loved books more than people.

There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.

Take no heed of her…. She reads a lot of books.

Literary detection and firearms don’t really go hand in hand; pen mighter than the sword and so forth.

Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.

I know I’m not inspiring much confidence at this point, but there’s something else I thought I’d bring up.” She lifted her eyes to him. “I love you more than I love books.

On everyone’s lap rested a book. Any book. In case the wedding got boring.

She delighted in the smell of the ink, the rough feel of the paper between her fingers, the rustle of sweet pages, the shapes of letters before her eyes.