Dog Books Quotes & Sayings

Dismissed like a dog. Damon groped for his jacket behind him, found it, and wished that his groping for his sense of humor could be as successful. The faces around him were all the same. They could have been carved in stone.
But not stone as hard as that that was coming together again around his soul. That rock was remarkably quick to mend - and an extra layer was added, like the layering of a pearl, but not covering anything nearly so pretty. — L.J.Smith

You do not see any improvements you would make?"
Miss Harding's smile turned mischievous. "Not at present. But I should have to see the inside. That is where ladies really excel, you know, in curtains and cushions and such."
"Indeed," David murmured, remembering how Maude had filled the London house with bolts and piles of fabrics and wallpapers and pillows the instant they arrived. Everything in the very latest style.
And then he thought of Emma's cosy sitting room, all books and family portraits and dog beds. — Amanda McCabe

I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and her book in my hands. Like a lot of things in my life, I'd just about worn it out, but it was worn out with love, and that's the best kind of worn-out there is. Maybe we're like all those used cars, broken hand tools, articles of old clothing, scratched record albums, and dog-eared books. Maybe there really isn't any such thing as mortality; that life simply wears us out with love. — Craig Johnson

Nowhere is the dog more venerated and cared for than in Zoroastianism. The Avesta and other sacred books say the dog symbolizes sagacity, vigilance and fidelity and is the pillar of the pastoral culture. It must be treated with the utmost kindness and reverence. Every household should not only give food to every hungry dog but the dog should be fed with 'clean food,' specially prepared, before the family itself is fed. At religious ceremonies a complete 'meal of the dog' is prepared with consecrated food and the dog is served before the worshippers join in the communal meal. A prayer is said as the dog eats. — J.C. Cooper

Eventually, we come to love certain novels because we have expended so much imaginative labor on them. This is why we hang on to those novels, whose pages are creased and dog-eared. — Orhan Pamuk

He was always eating things of hers. Clothing, books, family heirlooms. — Kellyn Roth

The relationship between the critic and writer is similar to the one between the pigeon and the statue or the dog and lamp post. — Ashwin Sanghi

Yet, if I were to adhere to my mom's advice, I would have had to drop out of school years ago (since a lot of folks in our inequitable education system refuse to love us), quit engaging public health offices (because I walked in as a human in need of medical services and walked out as a patient whose subjective world was mad invisible by research lingo: "MSM," otherwise known as "men who have sex with men'), sleep in my bed all damn day (knowing it is more likely that I would be stopped by police when walking to the store in Camden or Bed-Stuy while rocking a fitted cap and carrying books than my white male neighbors would be while walking around in ski masks in the middle of summer and dropping a dime bag on the ground in front of a walking police and his dog)... — Kiese Laymon

On the steps leading to a door
was a scrub brush that was blue.
I snatched it quick and ran for home
because it was just the thing to chew. — Melinda K. Trotter

I am stretching out this volume, since those German dogs estimate the value of books by their cubic contents. — Karl Marx

Because I have conducted my own operas and love sheep-dogs; because I generally dress in tweeds, and sometimes, at winter afternoon concerts, have even conducted in them; because I was a militant suffragette and seized a chance of beating time to The March of the Women from the window of my cell in Holloway Prison with a tooth-brush; because I have written books, spoken speeches, broadcast, and don't always make sure that my hat is on straight; for these and other equally pertinent reasons, in a certain sense I am well known. — Ethel Smyth

During those times, only under piles of blankets did she feel substantial enough not to drift away; they kept her weighted down and a part of the world. But eventually her dog's persistence and her own strong will would win over, and she'd drag herself up from the thick bog and go back to her chores and her books, carving the missing days into the wall so they did not escape entirely. — Sere Prince Halverson

The biggest mistake in puppy training, which is also the most common one, is punishing the dog for bad behavior. — Vivaco Books

It took Lucy forty hours to die and we hardly left her side ... We spent those last hours kissing her frequently and telling her how deeply we loved her. Then I began to read Leah's children's books out loud to her. She had lived a storyless childhood, so I read in the last day of her life the books she had missed. I told her about Winnie the Pooh and Yertle the Turtle, took her Where the Wild Things Are, introduced her to Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland. Each of us took turns reading to her out of Grimm's Fairy Tales, and, at the very last, Leah insisted that I tell all the Great Dog Chippie stories I had told her during our year of exile from the family in Rome. — Pat Conroy

There will always be detours in the fascinating game called life. Find the path to your heart's desires, and stay on course. — Elizabeth Parker

I feel that my tendency to acquire books is rather like someone smoking two packs a day: it's a terrible vice that I wish I could shuck. I love my books, and with all their dog-ears and underlinings they are irreplaceable; but I sometimes wish they'd just vanish. ~ Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Child. — Leah Price

He treats books like treasured, rare things, and I guess they are, but my father used to dog-ear books and read them until they fell apart, and I like his method better — Beth Revis

You can't have too much dog in a book. — Gail Honeyman

Readers have the right to say whatever the fuck they want about a book. Period. They have that right. If they hate the book because the MC says the word "delicious" and the reader believes it's the Devil's word and only evil people use it, they can shout from the rooftops "This book is shit and don't read it" if they want. If they want to write a review entirely about how much they hate the cover, they can if they want. If they want to make their review all about how their dog Foot Foot especially loved to pee on that particular book, they can."
[Blog entry, January 9, 2012] — Stacia Kane

...the sixth [eligible lady] perished miserably after returning to me one of my most cherished books with the leaves dog-eared and the binding cracked. For I hold with the greatest philosophers that she who maltreats a book will never make a good wife. — Roswell Field

WILSON RAWLS was born on a small farm in the Oklahoma Ozarks. He spent his youth in the heart of the Cherokee nation, prowling the hills and river bottoms with his only companion, an old bluetick hound. Rawls's first writing was done with his fingers in the dust of the country roads and in the sands along the river, and his earliest stories were told to his dog. Not until Rawls's family moved to Muskogee and he could attend high school did he encounter books. Where the Red Fern Grows has become a modern classic and has been made into a widely acclaimed motion picture. — Wilson Rawls

I thought it was a novel."
"It is."
"What's it about??"
"You'll have to buy it to find out, but it's got everything: love, death and an amusing dog."
"This one's got a recipe for apple crumble," I said.
"Don't you love that about the novel? The capaciousness?" he said. — Marcel Theroux

Sometimes when I watch my dog, I think about how good life can be, if we only lose ourselves in our stories. Lucy doesn't read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just IS a dog. All she wants to do is chase ducks and sticks and do other things that make both her and me happy. It makes me wonder if that was the intention for man, to chase sticks and ducks, to name animals, to create families, and to keep looking back at God to feed off his pleasure at our pleasure. — Donald Miller

Holy crap, you are like a dog with a bone," I commented to Ryan.
"Or just one with a boner. — Stacey Marie Brown

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. — Groucho Marx

The little dog-eared books in the meeting-house proved poor reading ... So many of them were about unnaturally good children who never did wrong, and unnaturally bad children who never did right. At the end there was always the word MORAL, in big capital letters, as if the readers were supposed to be too blind to find it for themselves, and it had to be put directly across the path for them to stumble over. — Annie Fellows Johnston

Whenever I give a talk about my work I am invariably asked who my influences are. Not what my influences are, but who.. As if the gutter, misunderstandings, memories, sex, dreams, and books matter less than forebears do. After all, in terms of influences, it is as much the guy who mugged me on Tenth Street, or my beloved dog who passed away much too early, as it was Giotto or Diane Arbus. — Robert Gober

Bonjour, Monsieur Fraser. She inclined her veil gracefully, more to hide the broad smile on her face than in greeting, I thought. I see you have made the acquaintance of Bouton. Are you perhaps in search of your wife?
This seeming to be my cue, I sidled out of the office door behind her. My devoted spouse glanced from Bouton to the office door, plainly drawing conclusions.
And just how long have ye been standin' there,Sassenach? he asked dryly. Long enough, I said, with the smug self-assurance of one in Bouton's good books. — Diana Gabaldon

As you've witnessed, Catwoman is the ultimate diva. From the pages of comic books to both small and big screens, Catwoman continues to evolve and mature like a true cat. Catwoman, is a unique breed, never taking the same form twice. But whatever form she takes, she'll always reign supreme. A dog maybe man's best friend, but a cat is everyone's favourite feline fatale. — Eartha Kitt

A sweet kiss on her head made her little heart swell; she had pancakes, her dog. She had love. All was well. — Renata Bowers

I opened my eyes to find a fuzzy face staring into mine. I laughed and scratched Boomer's head. "Your dog is a pervert, he watched the whole thing. — E.M. Denning

Sensing that this stranger was not the dangerous kind, and being the caring, big-hearted dog that he had built his reputation on, Lucky decided that a good dose of tongue licking would put matters right. However, in a twist of bad timing, unluckily for Lucky, he landed his lick just as Felicity rolled over onto her back. So, instead of a friendly lick across the ears as he intended, Lucky's long slobbery, pink tongue made a trail from Felicity's chin to her cherry red lips and up to her forehead.
'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHH! — Kaal Kaczmarek

People who write poetry while walking their dog can't possibly write poetry i'd be fucking interested in — Martijn Benders

... a wolf creature with yellow fur and black stripes. It were about the size of a real
large dog. I can remember it to this day, cos it were the first one I had ever seen.
It had a long muzzle and stripes on its sides like a tiger. The tail were thick and
the fur so fine and smooth it were like it didn't have hair. It's like a wolf, I heard
me mother say and indeed it looked like those wolves I seen in me fairytale books.
It stared at us with huge black eyes, then it opened its jaw real slow til I thought it
could swallow a baby. I'll go bail if it were not the most bonny, handsomest thing I
ever seen.. — Louis Nowra

Achtung, motherfuckers. And good afternoon. I'm James Ellroy; the death dog with the hog log, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick. I am the author of eighteen books, masterpieces all; they precede all my future masterpieces. They are books for the whole fucking family, if the name of your family is the Manson family. — James Ellroy

The true heart of Carolyn's farm was her kitchen, where sausages and pungent dog treats lay scattered over they counters, along with collars, magazines and books, trial application forums, checks from her students (Carolyn, not big on details, often left them lying around for months), leashes, and dog toys.

Pots of coffee were always brewing, and dog people could be found sitting around her big wooden table at all hours. Devon and I were always welcome there, and he grew to love going around the table from person to person, collecting pats and treats. Troubled dogs were familiar at the table, and appreciated. If we couldn't bring our dogs many places, we could always bring them here. — Jon Katz

If you want to hurt me fine. Take my books. Burn down my house. Shave my head while I'm sleeping. But nobody nobody screws with my dog. — Molly Harper

I mention the library only as a last resort. I recommend buying your own books... They can be spiced with underlines, question marks, and exclamation points; they can be thumbed and dog-eared, plucked to their essential core, and annotated so that they become a mirror of yourself. — Kato Lomb

I'm in production year round. I work long hours. I have a dog and a wife. There's not a lot of available time for consuming any culture: T.V., movies, books. When I read, it's generally magazines, newspapers and web sites. — Ira Glass

I've never understood people who return books after they've obviously read them. "Oh no, that dog-eared page was there when I bought it." Like hell it was. How about I punch you in the bloody face and tell you that bruise was there before and then we'll call it even. — Karina Halle

electrical wires dragged down by the weight of the ice and flickering balefully, a row of sleet-covered planes stranded in an airport, a huge truck that's jackknifed and tipped over and is lying on its side with smoke coming out. An ambulance is on the scene, a fire truck, a huddle of raingear-clad operatives: someone's been injured, always a sight to make the heart beat faster. A policeman appears, crystals of ice whitening his moustache; he pleads sternly with people to stay inside. It's no joke, he tells the viewers. Don't think you can brave the elements! His frowning, frosted eyebrows are noble, like those on the wartime bond-drive posters from the 1940s. Constance remembers those, or believes she does. But she may just be remembering history books or museum displays or documentary films: so hard, sometimes, to tag those memories accurately. Finally, a minor touch of pathos: a stray dog is displayed, semi-frozen, wrapped in a child's pink nap blanket. A gelid baby — Margaret Atwood

He set down his chili dog, and after a pondering moment of silence, he replied with words of wisdom I'd never forget: "Fuck women. Fuck school. Fuck money. Go write some books, get a good agent, lift weights, get tattoos, and never do a film with Keanu Reeves. — Jon Konrath

You don't believe in writing in books?" "Of course not. Nor do I dog-ear the pages, crack book spines, underline passages, or otherwise mistreat government property. — Elizabeth Camden

Good evening peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps. I'm James Ellroy, the demon dog, the foul owl with the death growl, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick. I'm the author of 16 books, masterpieces all; they precede all my future masterpieces. These books will leave you reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed. These are books for the whole fuckin' family, if the name of your family is Manson. — James Ellroy

We're becoming slaves; the war scatters us in all directions, takes away everything we own, snatches the bread from out of our mouths; let me at least retain the right to decide my own destiny, to laugh at it, defy it, escape it if I can. A slave? Better to be a slave than a dog who thinks he's free as he trots along behind his master. She listened to the sound of men and horses passing by. They don't even realise they're slaves, she said to herself, and I, I would be just like them if a sense of pity, solidarity, the "spirit of the hive" forced me to refuse to be happy. — Irene Nemirovsky

They were always there for you, books, like a small pet dog that doesn't die. — Ian Sansom

Are you going to talk about boys?" Sarah laughed. "What boys?" "Any boys." "No. We're talking about what we want for Christmas." "I want a dog," said Rose, hurrying to Abby's side. "A sister," said Sarah. "Poetry books," said Abby. "You just want poetry books because Zander likes poetry," said Rose. — Ann M. Martin

If you are thinking, you can't understand Zen. Anything that can be written in a book, anything that can be said - all this is thinking ... but if you read with a mind that has cut off all thinking, then Zen books, sutras and Bibles are all the truth. So is the barking of a dog or the crowing of a rooster. All things are teaching you at every moment, and these sounds are even better teaching than Zen books. — Seungsahn

I was attacked by a dog when I was a toddler, and my injuries were so bad, I spent quite a bit of my childhood in and out of hospital. Books were absolutely my salvation during those years. — Kate Forsyth

I am always amazed by the novel angles that people come up with for kids' Christmas books. Even if a family is not religious, who could resist, say, "Olive, the Other Reindeer," about Olive the dog who thinks the song refers to her and heads for the North Pole to help Santa out? — Jabari Asim

Alister McGrath has now written two books with my name in the title. The poet W. B. Yeats, when asked to say something about bad poets who made a living by parasitizing him, wrote the splendid line, 'was there ever dog that praised his fleas? — Richard Dawkins

Sometimes people will think, I need to have pre-sanctioned spiritual joy. Getting joy from my contemplative meditation practice or getting joy from reading Thich Nhat Hahn books. Those things can be joyful but I think it's the small, simple joys of playing with dogs or having sex with someone you love or going for a walk outside, stuff that we tend to ignore. — Moby

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her dear dog a bone.
Though the cupboard was bare,
When she focused elsewhere
Her heart overflowed with fun! — Kristen McKee

I write at a desk. I have a room of my own where I can have my computer. I write in there, usually directly onto my computer. It used to be the room where my two sons used to sleep with the dog and the cat, but now it's all mine. It has pictures of art from my books on the walls. — Eve Bunting

And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing. — Mary Oliver

In August of 1998, I completed Seize the Night, the sequel to my novel Fear Nothing, one of many of my books in which a dog is among the cast of principal characters. Every time I wrote a story that included a canine, my yearning for a dog grew. Readers and critics alike said I had an uncanny knack for writing convincingly about dogs and even for writing from a dog's point of view. When a story contained a canine character, I always felt especially inspired, as if some angel watching over me was trying to tell me that dogs were a fundamental part of my destiny if only I would listen. — Dean Koontz

I love so many books and authors that it's hard to name just a few, but I'm always particularly excited when new books by Alice Hoffman, John Crowley, Joanne Harris, Elizabeth Knox, and Patricia McKillip come out. (And, of course, books by Ellen [Kushner], and Holly [Black], and the rest of the Bordertown crew!) I'm impatiently looking forward to Susanna Clarke's next book too.
Aside from writing and reading, my favorite things to do are paint, walk in the countryside with my dog, and listen to music
especially when it's live and it's played by friends. Fortunately there's a lot of live music where I live. — Terri Windling

Porter Square Books was the only place I could find that was dog-friendly, work-friendly, and had food. I was there all the time. — Matthew Pearl

EDGAR
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
Storm still. — William Shakespeare

If books were food, I'd weigh thirty thousand pounds. I devour the things. I'm addicted to reading, and when I'm in the middle of a great book, I'm tempted to tell my kids to eat dog food for dinner. Before you call the Department of Family and Children's Services, I said tempted. I've never actually done that. — Sandi Hutcheson

Antiphon, as another man gets pleasure from a good horse, or a dog, or a bird, I get even more pleasure from good friends. And if I have something good, I teach it to them, and I introduce them to others who will be useful to them with respect to virtue. And together with my friends I go through the treasures of wise men of old which they left behind written in books, and we peruse them. If we see something good, we pick it out and hold it to be a great profit, if we are able to prove useful to one another. — Socrates

We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night - every night, every night - the moment I feigned sleep. — Vladimir Nabokov

I read used books because fingerprint-smudged and dog-eared pages are heavier on the eye. Because every book can belong to many lives. Books should be kept in public places and step out with passersby who'll onto them for a spell. Books should die like people, consumed by aches and pains, infected, drowning off a bridge together with the suicides, poked into a potbellied stove, torn apart by children to make paper boats. They should die of anything, in other words, except boredom, as private property condemned to a life sentence on a shelf. — Erri De Luca

Imagine a very long time passing - and I find my way out, following someone who already knows how to leave Hell. And God says to me on Earth for the first time, "Xas!" in a tone of discovery, as if I'm a misplaced pair of spectacles or a stray dog. And he puts it to me that he wants me in Heaven. But Lucifer has doubled back - it was him I followed - to find me, where I am, in a forest, smitten, because the Lord has noticed me, and I'm overcome, as hopeless as your dog Josie whom you got rid of because she loved me.' Xas glared at Sobran. Then he drew a breath - all had been said on only three. He went on: 'Lucifer says to God the He can't have me. And at this I sit up and tell Lucifer that I didn't even think he knew my name, then say to God no thank you - very insolent this - and that Hell is endurable so long as the books keep appearing. — Elizabeth Knox

The dog growled again, long and ferocious. The hair on my neck tingled.
And just when I knew he would attack, a horrible scream split the air, and Darlene passed out and fell over on her side. — Carol Petrie

On the subject of pornography, Lord MacCaulay believes that term only suitable for material lacking artistic merit, being designed solely for the purpose of sexual arousal. His own collection of books, sketches and cards (some more dog-eared than others) he deems akin to the Venus de Milo, rising above the common fodder of aids to 'relief'. — Emmanuelle De Maupassant

I'm eighty-three and homeless. It was the same when World War II ended. The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people's discharges and stuff. And my feeling was "Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?" That what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now? I've wondered where home is. It's when I was in Indianapolis when I was nine years old. Had a dog, a cat, a brother, a sister. — Kurt Vonnegut

The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes connot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog. Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality ... in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do. — C.S. Lewis

My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon. — Thomas Hood

So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States. — Frank Nugent

Eventually, as my books became best-sellers, the nickels pile up and one
day I was offered a substantial four-book deal that was lucrative as any airliner hijacking in history. Though writing those four books was hard work, at least I didn't have to wear Kevlar body armor, carry heavy bandoliers of spare ammunition, or work with associates named Mad Dog. — Dean Koontz

I explore the full boxes, mostly brimming with battered, dog-eared, highlighted books. The pages are worn, well-read, and I skim through them. I wonder if it's possible to know someone through the words they loved. — Michelle Hodkin

Lucy doesn't read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just is a dog. — Donald Miller

Imaginary friends are like books. We're created, we're enjoyed, we're dog-eared and creased, and then we're tucked away until we're needed again. — Katherine Applegate

I grabbed the closest box of books and heaved it onto my bed. It contained all the books I had read in Iraq. Dog-eared, with broken spines, speckled with dirt, food, and even a little blood, most of the copies were marked up with notes in the margins. The better the book, the worse it looked--that's the way it should be. As I saw it, they were almost more like diaries than books. — Michael Anthony

Look, Mrs. McGillicuddy, it's not my fault your son jumped out a dorm room window on Christmas eve. I've written over fifty books as a Columbia professor, all right? You don't do that by holding hands with every at-risk undergraduate who says he's homesick, or he's turning gay, or the dog ate his term paper. I write about Lincoln, and freedom, and great ideas. I don't always have time for students. It's like Dean Martin used to say: if you want to talk, go to a priest.
Hey
what's the gun for? — Eric Foner

The first dog I ever had was called Prince. I called him after the Black Prince. You know, the fellow who ... '
'Massacred all the women and children in Limoges.'
'I don't remember that.'
'The history books gloss it over. — Graham Greene

Who was he?" "A magician who took me in after I left the Bone-master. On his good days, he tried to teach me everything he knew." "What about his bad days?" "On his bad days, he generally thought he was an onion." "That's awful," said Jinx. "No, it's not. What was awful was when he thought he was a potato masher." "Oh." "He always said to me, 'Mildred, one day this will all be yours.'" Simon made a wide gesture, encompassing books, cats, and the door to Samara. "Er, he called you Mildred?" "Often as not." "Maybe he really meant to leave everything to Mildred," said Jinx. "If she ever shows up, we'll talk," said Simon. "But I think she may have been a dog he once had. — Sage Blackwood

Since I was trying so hard to make books lead my life, I didn't want to read them and then just put them back on the shelf and say, "good book," as if I was patting a good dog. I wanted books to change me, and I wanted to write books that would change others. — Jack Gantos

Many friends have said to me, 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or even seen you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone; they depart in a secretive manner and you do not see them again for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same. — Agatha Christie

Reading, for me, is like this: consumptive, pleasing, calming, as much as edifying. It's how I feel after a good dinner. That's why I do it so often: It feels wonderful. The book is mind and I insert myself into it, cover it entire, ear my way through every last slash and dot. That's something you can do with a book, unlike television or movies or the Internet. You can eat it, or mark it, like a dog does on a hydrant. — Tara Bray Smith

In 1916, when Johnny Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my studio at the south end of the town at five o'clock one May morning, we had no idea of the immense possibilities, or of the thorny but successful career, that awaited the new invention. On a piece of cardboard we pasted a mishmash of advertisements for hernia belts, student song books and dog food, labels from schnaps and wine bottles, and photographs from picture papers, cut up at will in such a way as to say, in pictures, what would have been banned by the censors if we had said it in words. — George Grosz

Deep layers of context are missed when cursorily reading for quantity at the expense of comprehension - only the vapid are impressed by those who try to squeeze as many books as possible into each passing month as if shoving one more oiled hot dog down the gullet in a food eating contest to prove accumulation superiority. — Wil Zeus