Books & Reading Quotes

“A poor appetite for books eventually leads to intellectual malnutrition.”

“The garden full of trees and chickens. The library of Grimm and Dickens.”

“A book is very like a money-changer: it pays you back in another form what you bring to it.”

“What a silence in those old books as of a half-peopled world—what bleating of flocks—what green pastoral rest—what indubitable human existence!... O men and women, so far separated yet so near, so strange yet so well-known, by what miraculous power do I know ye all! Books are the true Elysian fields where the spirits of the dead converse, and into these fields a mortal may venture unappalled. What king's court can boast such company? What school of philosophy such wisdom?... Seated in my library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the supernatural. They are not collections of printed pages, they are ghosts. I take one down and it speaks with me in a tongue not now heard on earth, and of men and things of which it alone possesses knowledge. I call myself a solitary, but sometimes I think I misapply the term. No man sees more company than I do.”

“Midnight in the bookstore— where all the unsold books are telling stories.”

“Around the narrow circuit of the room Breast-high the books I love range file on file; And when, day-weary, I would rest awhile, As once again slow falls the gathering gloom Upon the world, I love to pass my hand Along their serried ranks, and silent stand In breathless heark'ning to their silent speech. With rev'rent hand I touch the back of each Of these my books. How much of their dear selves— The hand that held the pen, the brain that wrought The subtle fancies on these pages caught— Have men immortal left upon my shelves!”

“"Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue — you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night — there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean..."”

“Who gives a good book gives more than cloth, paper and ink... more than leather, parchment and words. He reveals a foreword of his thoughts, a dedication of his friendship, a page of his presence, a chapter of himself, and an index of his love.”

“Errata.— Deathbed confessions of a book.”

“In the attic Christie was discovered lying dressed upon her bed, asleep or suffocated by the smoke that filled the room. A book had slipped from her hand, and in falling had upset the candle on a chair beside her.... "I forbade her to keep the gas lighted so late, and see what the deceitful creature has done with her private candle!" cried Mrs. Stuart.... "Look at her!... She has been at the wine, or lost her wits.... She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain."”

“We talked books. We just simply enumerated books without end, praising or damning them, and arranged authors in neat pews.... No pastime is more agreeable to people who have the book disease, and none more quickly fleets the hours, and none is more delightfully futile.”

“Classics are not classics because hoary with age — they are the steel balls which have worn down mountains but remained unchanged in the mill of time.”