492 Quotes About Novels

If I had to choose between all the books in the world and you, then I would choose to read your body for the rest of my life.

She found herself longing for home-not just for the hotel but for New York and all the real novels that she could lose herself in there.

Thus far, the only people who can grant you immortality are not scientists, but writers. By writing you into their books, they may not only immortalize you, but also grant you superpowers.

The trees are bedecked with snow, the air is perfumed; how sweet, how dark the sultry fragrance. Forever hypnotising, always haunting. I want to inhale the fragrance of your skin, drink from your open mouth.

Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.

Novels institutionalize the ruse of eros. It becomes a narrative texture of sustained incongruence, emotional and cognitive. It permits the reader to stand in triangular relation to the characters in the story and reach into the text after the objects of their desire, sharing their longing but also detached from it, seeing their view of reality but also its mistakenness. It is almost like being in love.

She snuggled into bed with them, looking up from time to time, saying she was sorry, she knew she should be doing something more productive, but like Dad, she had her addictions, and one of hers was reading.

More wisdom can be transmitted through a novel than a textbook.

Bloody global warming. Funny breed us Brits. We moan when it rains cats and dogs and complain when it’s too hot. Let the protestors emigrate to bleeding Siberia. That’s what I say, eh?