Book Quotes

“Reading is not an end to itself, but a means to an end.”
― Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.”
― W.H. Auden

“Experience is the best teacher.”
― Penelope Douglas, Bully

“A book unopened alters not the ink on its pages. What is there is there.”
― J.R. Ward, Lover Unbound

“Don't set your goals by what other people deem important.”
― Jaachynma N.E. Agu, The Prince and the Pauper

“if you learn to hate one or two persons... you'll soon hate millions of people.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl

“I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief... I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world.

[Washington Post interview, 19 February 2001]”
― philip pullman

“The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr.”
― Anonymous, القرآن الكريم

“Maybe 'Okay' will be our 'always'...”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Kaz reached into his coat pocket. "Here," he said and handed Jesper a slender book with an elaborate cover.

"Are we going to read to each other?"

"Just flip it open to the back."

Jesper opened the book and peered at the last page, puzzled. "So?"

"Hold it up so we don't have to look at your ugly face."

"My face has character. Besides - oh!"

"An excellent read, isn't it?"

"Who knew I had a taste for literature?”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in their jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journey of exploration and discovery.”
― David Almond

“If you fail to report within the next 12 hours. you will be terminated. If you attack any humans, you will be terminated. If you attempt to remove the tracking device, you will be terminated. We look forward to working with you.”
― Kiersten White, Paranormalcy

“Don't judge a book by its cover”
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

“I wanted to live among books.”
― Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading

“I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker

“I choose to write because it's perfect for me. It's an escape, a place I can go to hide. It's a friend, when I feel out casted from everyone else. It's a journal, when the only story I can tell is my own. It's a book, when I need to be somewhere else. It's control, when I feel so out of control. It's healing, when everything seems pretty messed up.
And it's fun, when life is just flat-out boring.”
― Alysha Speer

“A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward.

A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn't tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Come to the book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it and draw your own map.”
― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

“Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us?

Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is—not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness.

We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“When I think of all the harm [the Bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I have never been able to resist a book about books.”
― Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

“Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well—and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told.”
― Dean Koontz, Innocence

“As we expand our knowledge of good books, we shrink the circle of men whose company we appreciate.”
― Ludwig Feuerbach

“I hate the vamp jobs. They think they're so suave. It's not enough for them to slaughter and eat you like a zombie would. No, they want to be all sexy, too. And trust me: vampires? Not. Sexy.”
― Kiersten White, Paranormalcy

“It was odd, (Tessa thought), what brought out tenderness in people.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“I hated the place, Tommy. I hated every second of every day. And it was all … your … fault!”
― James Dashner , The Death Cure

“If invisible people eat invisible food does invisible wind blow invisible trees?”
― Cecelia Ahern, If You Could See Me Now

“..holding a book but reading the empty spaces.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

“With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“I beg your pardon?” Catherine interrupted. “Are you implying that women have poor judgment?”

“In these matters, yes.” Leo gestured to Christopher. “Just look at the fellow, standing there like a bloody Greek god. Do you think she chose him because of his intellect?”

“I graduated from Cambridge,” Christopher said acidly. “Should I have brought my diploma?”

“In this family,” Cam interrupted, “there is no requirement of a university degree to prove one’s intelligence. Lord Ramsay is a perfect example of how one has nothing to do with the other.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon