#books

"A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is."

"Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name."

"It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed."

"Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time."

"Tis the good reader that makes the good book."

"Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good."

"I was flipping channels, watching this cheerleading program on MTV. They took a field hockey girl and “transformed” her into a cheerleader by the end of the show. I was just wondering: what if she liked field hockey better?"

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."

"Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding."

"All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us."

"Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches."

"If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality."

"My alma mater was books, a good library.... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it."

"The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books"

"Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!"

"Literature is news that stays news."

"A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert."

"I wrote an edible cookbook. The pages are made out of tortillas. It’s also the Book of Love. (Batteries and hot sauce sold separately.)"

"He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head."