400 Quotes About Readers

You must write for all those who are thirsty to read and who can enjoy a good reading.

As readers, we are seldom interested in the fine sentiments of a lesson learnt; we seldom care about the good manners of morals. Repentance puts an end to conversation; forgiveness becomes the stuff of moralistic tracts. Revenge - bloodthirsty, justice-hungry revenge - is the very essence of romance, lying at the heart of much of the best fiction.

Are you imperfect, romantically irrational, ridiculously fearless, and utterly illogical? You're my ideal reader, friend, partner. I'm your fan.

A good reader should always have two books with him: one to read, the other one to lend.

Books are the best companions as they make you sit near wisdom.

What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed.

It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.

Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read.

If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be.