books

"The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters."

"The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book."

"Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand."

"Books are to me as homemade tattoos are to an inmate. Can't get enough of them."

"I couldn't live a week without a private library - indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I'd let go of the 1500 or so books I possess."

"To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength."

"Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different."

"Epics are never written about libraries. They exist on whim; it depends on if the conquering army likes to read."

"I am a part of all I have read."

"If your library is not "unsafe,"it probably isn't doing its job."

"But I think the most important thing those books gave me was a kind of faith. My books promised me that life wasn’t just made up of workaday tasks and prosaic things. The world is bigger and more colorful and more important than that."

"Think before you speak. Read before you think."

"Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book."

"You're something between a dream and a miracle."

"You're either reading a book or you're not."

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life."

"You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library.' She pointed to the shelf opposite. 'Over there was Catch-22, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe."

"Be awesome! Be a book nut!"

"I’m trying to translate what my cat says and put it in a book, but how many homonyms are there for meow?"

"Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry."