50+ Quotes About Books: Your Guide to the Literary Universe

“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.”

“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”

“I love books. I like that the moment you open one and sink into it you can escape from the world, into a story that’s way more interesting that yours will ever be.”

“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”

“So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea.”

“I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.”

“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.”

“This book taught me, once and for all, how easily you can escape this world with the help of words! You can find friends between the pages of a book, wonderful friends.”

“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.”

“If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.”

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”

“I guess there are never enough books.”

“All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. … But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.”

“What are you doing with all those books anyway?Ron asked. Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,”said Hermione. When we’re looking for the Horcruxes.”Oh, of course,”said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.””

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.”

“There’s nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become a part of you, in a way that words in a book you’ve read only once can’t.”

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”

“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.”

“It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.”

“There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight”

“Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.”

“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.”

“Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.”

“Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.”

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

“Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.”

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.”

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”

“Stephenie Meyer: Her vampires are sparkly, which I think we can all agree is wrong.”

“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”

“How can you tell? That I like books, I mean.The look on your face when you walked in, somehow I doubted you were that impressed by me.”

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”

“Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.”

“Books are a narcotic.”

“The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.”

“No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.”

“As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.”

“My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn’t have any excuse to be stupid.”

“You cannot open a book without learning something.”

“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”

“It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.”

“They’re book addicts.”

“It’s a good idea to have your own books with you in a strange place”

“I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself.”

“I WANTED TO EXPLAIN THAT I AM CONSTANTLY OVERESTIMATING AND UNDERESTIMATING THE HUMAN RACE – THAT RARELY DO I EVEN SIMPLY ESTIMATE IT. I WANTED TO ASK HER HOW THE SAME THING COULD BE SO UGLY AND SO GLORIOUS, AND ITS WORDS AND STORIES SO DAMNING AND BRILLIANT…I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS.”

“Your mail could’ve waited.Daemon followed me into the kitchen. “What is it? Just books?”Grabbing the OJ from the fridge, I sighed. People who didn’t heart books didn’t understand.””

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested”

“When asked, How do you write?”I invariably answer, “One word at a time,”and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true…””