395 Quotes About Book-lovers

Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors.

She would read a book hundreds of times, carrying it with her until the pages were torn and the covers were falling off, then she'd paste the covers to the ceiling where she could stare at them, like remembering a good dream.

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It's like falling in love.

You have to store up books, becoming acquainted with human experience; let them lie around your thoughts, becoming yours—ring upon ring, as a tree grows, let them rise up from the depths like coral islands.If it gets crowded with all the books and there's nowhere to put your bed, it's better to exchange it for a folding bed

Nearly all bookish people are snobs, and especially the more enlightened among them. They are apt to assume that if a writer has immense circulation, if he is enjoyed by plain persons, and if he can fill several theatres at once, he cannont possibly be worth reading and merits only indifference and disdain.

Namun pada saat itupun aku tahu bahwa setiap kali membuka sebuah buku, aku akan bisa memandang sepetak langit. Dan jika aku membaca sebuah kalimat baru, aku akan sedikit lebih banyak tahu dibandingkan sebelumnya. Dan segala yang kubaca akan membuat dunia dan diriku sendiri menjadi lebih besar dan lebih luas.

Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. “You’re my sacred ones,” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.” I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.

Are there sexual fetishes that involve books? There must be. I try not to imagine how they might work.

Don't give up on the power of books to change lives and the world. As everything goes digital, book formats will morph, but their profound influence will endure.