7,712 Quotes About Books

I do believe literature holds the best of us . . . or perhaps it reflects the better versions of who we are.

A book is but a stack of paper until someone reads it. And when someone reads it, they build a house within its pages so whenever they return to that book, they feel right at home.

Read books. Try to understand the reason why things happen, why they are as they are. If you see only the surface phenomena, then the world becomes extremely confusing, ever more unsettling. But if the reasons are understood there's a kind of simplicity that emerges.

If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunites of seeing the world, and obtaining a knowledge of Mankind than any of your cotemporarys, that you have never wanted a Book, but it has been supplied you, that your whole time has been spent in the company of Men of Literature and Science. How unpardonable would it have been in you, to have been a Blockhead.

We’re all what we read to a very considerable degree.

We take from books what we bring to them.

From inside the thick of her grief, Lydia read. She read without lifting her eyes...only pausing when the ache in her shoulder or the pins and needles in her foot forced her to lift her eyes from the page, shift the pillows and turn the other way. Then her gaze would fall on the wallpaper with its pattern of roses and she would blink and wonder where in the world she was. Then, as she started to remember, thank God, there was the book, and she would slip under again, a sigh in her throat.

Books always leave a light on.

The texts are pristine, printed in colors so brilliant, the ink looks fresh. Every few feet, a spine pushes in between adjacent texts, like a new book has just been birthed. It’s a living library.