I Am Like A Book Quotes & Sayings

One of the most often posed questions I receive from clients and readers is: "Why is there so much evil in the world? Why is there so much violence and hate?"
The answer is simple. Because we've forgotten who we are and why we are here on this planet.
That answer may sound like the preface to some airy-fairy metaphysical book, but it's not. Understanding who we are is essential to living a balanced life. I am talking, of course, about the human soul. — Cassandra Blizzard

I have been doodling since childhood. I have a passion for illustrating but cannot paint or colour for that matter. I illustrate what I am trying to communicate through my writing. My images are like drawings in a science text book. — Devdutt Pattanaik

Like all philosophers, I am an observer of the human condition. I have found through my observations that an intelligent man and a humble man are rarely the same person.
Jao-long from my book Aztec Legend Lord of the Jaguars. — B.E. Crittenden

I think the reason why I don't read so much, is because as I have observed, whole books all boil down to a drop of essence. You can read a book full of ten thousand words and at the end, sum it up in one sentence; I am more for the one sentence. I am more for the essence. It's like how you need a truckload of roses to extract one drop of rose oil; I don't want to bother with the truckload of roses because I would rather walk away with the drop of rose oil. So in my mind, I have written two hundred books. Why? Because I have with me two hundred vials with one drop of essence in each! — C. JoyBell C.

Like Adam, our first conspicuous ancestor, I must begin, and lay the blame upon a woman; I am glad to recognize that I differ from the father of my sex in no important particular, being as manlike as most of his sons. — Owen Wister

I wake up.
Immediately I have to figure out who I am. It's not just the body - opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I'm fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth. The body is the easiest thing to adjust to, if you're used to waking up in a new one each morning. It's the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp.
Every day I am someone else. I am myself - I know I am myself - but I am also someone else.
It has always been like this. — David Levithan

Gardening is really an extended form of reading, of history and philosophy. The garden itself has become like writing a book. I walk around and walk around. Apparently people often see me standing there and they wave to me and I don't see them because I am reading the landscape. — Jamaica Kincaid

Jane, who is much better at reading guide books than I am (I always read them on the way back to see what I missed, it's often quite a shock), discovered something wonderful in the book she was reading. Did I know, she asked, that Brisbane was originally founded as a penal colony for convicts who committed new offences after they had arrived in Australia ? I spent a good half hour enjoying this single piece of information. It was wonderful. There we British sat, poor grey sodden creatures, huddling under our grey northern sky that seeped like a rancid dish cloth, busy sending those we wished to punish most severely to sit in bright sunlight on the coast of the Tasman Sea at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef and maybe do some surfing too. No wonder the Australians have a particular kind of smile that they reserve exclusively for use on the British. — Douglas Adams

My agent came to me with a deal from another publisher and I signed a deal and got the advance with no idea of what I was going to do. I probably procrastinated for almost a year, but we had meetings and I was basically going to spoof "Take Ivy," but then it kind of turned into something else. I wanted it to be a book of all the things that made me who I am, like Brooks Brothers, Hot Wheels, "The Andy Griffith Show" and G.I. Joes. I couldn't sit still and do it, so my agent had to come to my house and force me to do it. — Mark McNairy

The waitress comes over to me like, 'What'chu readin' for?' I had never been asked that. Not 'What am I reading?' but 'What am I reading for?' Goddammit, you stumped me. Hmm, why do I read? I suppose I read for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being so I don't end up being a ... waffle waitress. — Bill Hicks

Yes, often, I am reminded of her, and in one of my vast array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt- an immense leap of an attempt- to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.
Here it is. One of a handful.
The Book Thief.
If you feel like it, come with me. I will tell you a story.
I'll show you something. — Markus Zusak

Like many of the people quoted on this dust-cover, I have not read Carl King's book. I am confident, however, that my review still applies: So, You're a Creative Genius is the best book available on modern cartography. — Heather Anne Campbell

A sentence in Auden's Airman's Journal has always seemed very profound to me
I
haven't the book here so I can't quote it exactly, but something about time and space and
how 'geography is a thousand times more important to modern man than history'
I
always like to feel where I am geographically all the time, on the map,
but maybe that
is something else again. — Elizabeth Bishop

To whomever is writing this book, what do you want
from me? I need to know my calling. Why was I chosen? Why
not Lee? Why not Susan March? Why me? What is my
purpose? Please let it be more than to destroy a life and
embarrass another. I need to know. I am suffering. You are a
constant headache. Anywhere I go, I can hear you, I can feel
you. I want to be like the others, ignorant of this. — Kevin Jared Hosein

Like my father, I am very impatient. I have a strong bullshit detector. I may finish one book in twenty that I have started. — John Fante

I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying is true. — Plato

I understand that what I am to do is to be a bridge between the people who would never set foot in a church in their entire lives and people who would like to get them there. So I write books that Christians can give to their non-Christian friends that they will actually read. — Andy Andrews

Like anyone else, a lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experience. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me. — Satya Nadella

It has long been my boast that I can read or eat anything. But unfortunately, although I eat like a Hoover, I read so slowly that I am always on the smart book three years after everyone else has finished. — Katharine Whitehorn

Democracy is only good for a society where individuals are educated and have the ability to differentiate right from wrong without any influences from the outside. India is the biggest democracy in the world, yet, why is it so venal, divided and poor? America is the greatest democracy of the world, yet, it only has two main political parties, which are heavily influenced by lobbyists from religious groups, and powerful institutions like businesses, trade unions and think-tanks. In contrast, China is a nation ruled by one party, yet it has prospered during the last three decades, which is nothing less than a miracle. No other country on earth has ever achieved that feat. No system is good or bad for all. I am not saying democracy is bad, but it is not good for all. It can be good or bad for certain periods of time, circumstances and societies. There is no such thing as one idea fits all."

FROM MY NO.7 BOOK COMING SOON.... — Tim I. Gurung

I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out. I like a little suspense when I am writing, too. — James Patterson

So here we go, you and me. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. This is America and I am allowed to have healthy self-esteem. This book comes straight from my feisty and freckled fingers. Know it was a battle. Blood was shed. A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I've grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let's peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write. — Amy Poehler

I don't really read as much but i am reading a depressing book on the holocaust ... — Patricia Reilly Giff

Reading. The erotics of reading for me -- its moment of trembling pleasure -- lie in those times when I realise that what I am reading is just what I was about to say. It is a moment of jealousy and disappointment, as if the occasion had been stolen from me, but it is a moment of excitement, too -- because I think I would like to try and say it better, because now the monologue in my mind has become dialogue. My immediate impulse is to write something, anything, notes to tell me the significance of what I have read, an appreciative letter to the author, the first sentences in a preface to a book that will never be written. Th archives of my readings are monumentally high. I can never let these erotic moments go. They are the paper trail of my mind. — Greg Dening

I like a book. I like to read for four hours at a stretch. I think very few are the young people who are even capable of reading for four hours at a stretch, because it's such a bizarre thing for them to do. I am mourning this. — Lee Smith

'Extraordinary' is an original fairy tale, a contemporary story. But like a traditional fairy tale, it heads quickly into frightening, bloody territory. I am afraid for my book, as it goes out alone into the world, just as I was frightened for Phoebe as I wrote and rewrote her story. — Nancy Werlin

Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth, believe me - there's nothing I'd rather do! I want like hell to tell you. But I can't. I quite literally can't. Because, don't you see, what I know is what I am? And I can't tell you that. You have to find it out for yourself. I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about. — Christopher Isherwood

What's that map?" I asked.
"Spells of Coming Forth by Day," he said. "Don't worry. It's a good copy."
I looked at Carter for a translation.
"Most people call it The Book of the Dead," he told me. "Rich Egyptians were always buried with a copy, so they could have directions through the Duat to the Land of the Dead. It's like an Idiot's Guide to the Afterlife."
The captain hummed indignantly. "I am no idiot, Lord Kane."
"No, no, I just meant ... " Carter's voice faltered. "Uh, what is that? — Rick Riordan

In my spare time I like to stare at shit. I mean, not literally. I like to stare at the TV, or the Internet, or a book, or cat videos. There's a lot of sitting very still and not moving involved. I suspect in a former life I was probably a statue because I am profoundly good at it. — Jenny Lawson

Life hasn't just begun. Art never had a beginning. Always, until the moment of its stopping, it was constantly there. It is infinite. It is here, at this moment, behind me and inside me, and, as if the doors of an Assembly Hall were suddenly flung open, I am immersed in its fresh, headlong omnilocality and omnitemporality, as if an oath of allegiance were to be sworn without delay.
No genuine book has a first page. Like the rustling of a forest, it is begotten God knows where, and it grows and it rolls, arousing the dense wilds of the forest until suddenly, in the very darkest, most stunned and panicked moment, it rolls to its end and begins to speak with all the treetops at once. — Boris Pasternak

There will never again be a day exactly like today. There will never again be a moment exactly like this moment. After my next birthday, I will never again be the age I am right now. After midnight tonight, today will be part of history. Someday I'll be dying and I'll wish I'd done all the things I want to do now. Someday I'll be dead and I won't be able to do anything. But today, right now, I'm alive. And yet I'm writing nonsense on the back of my literature book. But I'm alive. And yet I'm just sitting here. But I'm alive. — Ryan Miller

Dear Diary,
All that she left inside the box was a blank book and a name. You are the book, and I am the name...An-Ya. As you know, my name is printed on your first page. Did She write it? What did She look like as She stood over you with Her pen? Were there tears in Her eyes? Why were you left empty inside? — Diane Rene Christian

Life is depressing and hopeless enough, without imbibing further depression and hopelessness through story. I don't care how realistic people like to think that is. It's not what inspires me, or makes me love and cherish a book or a television show or a movie. When I am imbibing fiction, I want to be inspired. I want bold tales, told boldly. I want genuine Good People who, while not perfect, are capable of rising beyond their ordinary beginnings. To make a positive difference in their world. Even when all hope or purpose might seem lost. Because this is what I think fiction - as originally told around the campfires, through verbal legend - ought to do, more than anything else: Illuminate the way, shine a spiritual beacon, tell us that there is a bright point in the darkness, a light to guide the way, when all other paths are cast in shadow. — Brad R. Torgersen

I am a Hobbit, like I said at the beginning of the book. That doesn't mean that at times, many times, I wasn't a Dwarf, an Orc, even a bit Gollum-ish or Wraith-ish. But deep down, what I want to be is a Hobbit. Do you? — Steve Bivans

I really like how the sixth book is going. A lot happens in the sixth book and a lot of questions are answered. I really have a sense that we are nearly there and it is time for answers, not more questions and clues, although obviously there are a few clues as I am not quite finished yet. — J.K. Rowling

How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow. — Sara Sheridan

I hate Christmas. Everything is designed for families, romance, warmth, emotion and presents, and if you have no boyfriend, no money, your mother is going out with a missing Portuguese criminal and your friends don't want to be your friend anymore, it makes you want to emigrate to a vicious Muslim regime, where at least all the
women are treated like social outcasts. Anyway, I don't care. I am going to quietly read a book all
weekend and listen to classical music. — Helen Fielding

She would not say of any one in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to the sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that. — Virginia Woolf

When I read a book, I try my best, not always successfully, to let the wall crumble just a bit, the barricade that separates me from the book. I try to be involved.
I am Raskalnikov. I am K. I am Humbert and Lolita.
I am you.
If you read these pages and think I'm the way I am because I lived through a civil war, you can't feel my pain. If you believe you're not like me because one woman, and only one, Hannah, chose to be my friend, then you're unable to empathize. — Rabih Alameddine

Faithiest resonated with me in many ways-not only because, like Chris, I am a gay former-Christian atheist who still thinks of my religious neighbors as fellow truth-seekers-but also because I deeply appreciated the book's nuanced approach to contentious issues. This is an important contribution to current debates, one which should be read not only for its valuable content but also for its exemplary tone: warm, engaging, optimistic, and humble. — John Corvino

I don't really care for fiction."
"How can you not? The best thing about reading is to escape from your life, to be able to live hundreds or even thousands of different lives. Non-fiction doesn't have that power- it doesn't change you like fiction does."
"Change you?" He raises his brow.
"Yes, change you. If you aren't affected somehow, even in the slightest bit, you aren't reading the right book. I would like to think that every novel I've read has become a part of me, created who I am, in a sense. — Anna Todd

I am beginning to be sorry that I ever undertook to write this book. Not that it bores me; I have nothing else to do; indeed, it is a welcome distraction from eternity. But the book is tedious, it smells of the tomb, it has a rigor mortis about it; a serious fault, and yet a relatively small one, for the great defect of this book is you, reader. You want to live fast, to get to the end, and the book ambles along slowly; you like straight, solid narrative and a smooth style, but this book and my style are like a pair of drunks; they stagger to the right and to the left, they start and they stop, they mutter, they roar, they guffaw, they threaten the sky, they slip and fall ...
And fall! Unhappy leaves of my cypress tree, you had to fall, like everything else that is lovely and beautiful; if I had eyes, I would shed a tear of remembrance for you. And this is the great advantage in being dead, that if you have no mouth with which to laugh, neither have you eyes with which to cry. — Machado De Assis

My happiness is nothing to him," she said. "Only his books! He has made me like a book. I am not meant to be taken, and touched, and liked. I am meant to keep here, in dim light, forever! — Sarah Waters

I do not possess the ability to draw or paint.
I can't sing or dance.
I can't knit or sew.
But I am an artist.
I have the ability to put onto paper, words that tell an intriguing story.
I am a writer.
A writer is someone who, with just words, can paint a beautiful picture.
A writer can open up a world of imagination you didn't realize was possible.
When you open up a book and become so consumed in the story, you feel like you're a part of it ... you're standing next to that character and feeling the same way that character feels,
That's the art of a writer.
I am an artist.
My inspiration is the world around me.
My paintbrush is my words.
My easel is my computer.
My canvas is the mind of my reader. — Bri Justine

Never think you can't do something. I definitely never thought I could write a book, and even after I started writing it, I was like, 'Oh my God, how am I gonna write a book?' Just set your sights high and reach for the stars. Go live your dreams, and never think you can't. — Connor Franta

I, too, like to read. Once a month, I go to the local branch. For myself, I pick a novel and, for Bruno, with his cataracts, a book on tape. At first Bruno was doubtful. "What am I supposed to do with this?" he said, looking at the box set of "Anna Karenina" as if I'd handed him an enema. And yet. A day or two later I was going about my business when a voice from above bellowed, ALL HAPPY FAMILIES RESEMBLE ONE ANOTHER, nearly giving me a conniption. After that, he listened to whatever I'd brought him at top volume and then returned it to me without comment. One afternoon, I came back from the library with Ulysses. For a month straight he listened. He had a habit of pressing the stop button and rewinding when he hadn't fully grasped something. INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE VISIBLE: AT LEAST THAT. Pause, rewind. INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE. Pause, rewind. INELUCTABLE MODALITY. Pause. INELUCT. — Nicole Krauss

The passion has never left me. I live as two people - myself, Dan Fante, and Bruno Dante or Mickey Di Salvo, or whoever I say I am in one of my books. I can tap that Bruno character any time I need to. He lives inside me like a quiet, simmering pool of magma. Years ago I stopped feeding him with booze and he was kind enough to stop trying to kill me. That's our truce. — Dan Fante

I slipped through every school I went to without leaving a trace. I was in no team; I was never a prefect. I was totally mediocre - well, I probably still am - but at places like Summer Fields and Eton, it's all about sport and doing your bit, and I always preferred to watch telly or read a book than run round a field. — Tom Parker Bowles

I despair of ever getting it through anybody's head I am not interested in bookshops, I am interested in what's written in the books. I don't browse in bookshops, I browse in libraries, where you can take a book home and read it, and if you like it you go to a bookshop and buy it. — Helene Hanff

The first time I opened one I felt indecent. I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit curled in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping. Weird I am. I know. What the Hell? as Bobby Bowe says to everything. You either get it or you don't. When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of the writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds; these were the literal original Facebooks, the books where faces had been, and I just loved it, the whole strange sense of being aboard a readership. — Niall Williams

Reading Myself
Like thousands I took just pride and more than just,
struck matches that brought my blood to a boil;
I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire
somehow never wrote something to go back to.
Can I suppose I am finished with wax flowers
and have earned my grass on the minor slopes of Parnassus ...
No honeycomb is built without a bee
adding circle to circle, cell to cell,
the wax and honey of a mausoleum
this round dome proves its maker is alive;
the corpse of the insect lives embalmed in honey,
prays that its perishable work live long
enough for the sweet tooth bear to desecrate
this open book..my open coffin — Robert Lowell

My theory was that if I behaved like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that. I always had traces of strength somewhere inside me, it wasn't fake, it was just a way of summoning my courage to the fore and not letting any creeping self-doubt hinder my adventures. This method worked then, and it works now. I tell myself that I am the sort of person who can open a one-woman play in the West End, so I do. I am the sort of person who has several companies, so I do. I am the sort of person WHO WRITES A BOOK! So I do. It's the process of having faith in the self you don't quite know you are yet, if you see what I mean. Believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. Yes, that's it. The further I walk, the stronger I become. So unlike the real lived life, where the further you walk, the more your hips hurt. — Dawn French

Well, I'd like to think I am, and I'd also like to think that we're all having a lot more fun getting older than we pretend. It was interesting to me when I first started working on this book that I'd mentioned that I was writing a memoir about aging and everybody would moan and groan and carry on. — Anna Quindlen

If you are reading this book and you feel that way too then you are not alone. I understand how you feel. I think that anyone who has suffered from even mild depression understands how it feels. Yet we forget that others understand our suffering. We withdraw, isolate or shut down completely. We lose ourselves in our selves, and in the illness.
It doesn't have to be that way. If we connect with even one other human being who understands, we take one step out of the illness. Life is about connection. There is nothing else. Depression is the opposite; it is an illness defined by alienation. So I offer this book by way of connection. I offer it, too, as a source of hope. I hope that by sharing what I was like, what happened and what I am like now, that it may bring someone else comfort. — Sally Brampton

I'd go for "really great writer." Although I don't think I am. I know I have a style which is recognizable. I think you can see Terry Pratchett in every book. I like doing it. I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that's it. — Terry Pratchett

He walked over to Jacque, whose head was bowed and turned so that her neck was bared. It was like she knew instinctively to submit so as to not provoke the dominant wolf and hopefully she would subdue him in her surrender. Fane's wolf must have been the one in control of the wheel because he leaned down over Jacque and growled low. He placed his face against her neck, breathing deep, and his voice was guttural when he spoke. "Mine."
Jacque turned her head slightly and did what no other would ever be able to do when this Alpha was at this point, she looked him in the eyes. "Yes, I am yours." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Fane pulled his power in and all of a sudden it was like a weight had been lifted and they could breathe again.
Loftis, Quinn (2011-11-18). Blood Rites: Book 2 Grey Wolves Series (The Grey Wolves Series) (p. 95). Kindle Edition. — Quinn Loftis

If I am alive this is my book, and my father lives now in the afterlife that is a book, a thing not vague or virtual but something you can hold and feel and smell because to my mind heaven like life must be a thing sensual and real. And my book will be a river and have the Salmon literal and metaphoric leaping inside it and be called History of the Rain, so that his book does not perish, and you will know my book exists because of him and because of his books and his aspiration to leap up, to rise. You will know that I found him in his books, in the covers his hands held, the pages they turned, in the paper and the print, but also in the worlds those books contained, where now I have been and you have been too. You will know the story goes from the past to the present and into the future, and like a river flows. — Niall Williams

I've never read a book or attended a class on screenwriting. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I like what I've got going on naturally and want to protect that. The one question I will ask myself as I'm re-reading a script for the 60th time is, 'Am I entertained? Still?' If the answer is 'yes,' I'll assume other people will be, too. — Wentworth Miller

A word of warning here. The events as you remember them will never be the same in your memory once you have turned them into a memoir. For years I have worried that if I turn all of my life into literature, I won't have any real life left - just stories about it. And it is a realistic concern: it does happen like that. I am no longer sure I remember how it felt to be twenty and living in Spain after my parents died; my book about it stands now between me and my memories. When I try to think about that time, what comes to mind most readily is what I wrote. — Judith Barrington

I have anyway always hoped to write a truly memorable book, the one that you go back to the beginning of and start rereading as soon as you get to the end, the one that you think of in subsequent years as the one that really pointed you in the way you wish to go. I still don't think I have done it. That's life. Halfway to the moon. But on what I have done, I would not really like to set an age-limit. I am always delighted when aunts and grandfathers write to me, saying their nephew/granddaughter has just introduced them to, say, Howl and they couldn't put him down. — Diana Wynne Jones

The intensity in his gaze created a flutter low in my belly. When he spoke, his voice was rough, sending a series of chills up and down my spine. "I don't know what made you change your sleeping attire, but I just want to let you know that I am a hundred and fifty-five percent behind it." All I could think was that he liked what he saw and that was a good sign. "Actually, if you want to dress like that whenever we're alone - to eat dinner, watch the TV, read a book or whatever, I also support that. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

...there are enormous regions where I have never been, and what one has not known is what one has not been. An anxiety to start running, go into a house, into that store, jump on a train, devour all of Jouhandeau, know German... What is defective is felt more as an intuitive poverty than as a mere lack of experience. It really doesn't afflict me not having read all of Jouhandeau, at most the melancholy feeling of too short a life for so many libraries, etc. The lack of experience is inevitable, if I read Joyce I am automatically sacrificing another book and vice versa, etc. The feeling of lack is sharper in... zones for detention of your eyes, your smell, your taste, and you can't get beyond that limit when you think you've caught anything fully, just like an iceberg the thing has a small piece outside and shows it to you, and the enormous rest of it is beyond our limits and that's why the Titanic went down. — Julio Cortazar

When you care about perfection, you care about an expectation. But there is also caring for where I am right now, for what's happening right now. When I spend time with students, they tell me that they've read something in a book or heard something from a teacher that they don't think they're living up to. And I tell them, Take care of yourself right now. Befriend what's happening, not just who you're supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now. So how do you care for yourself this minute? — Bernie Glassman

Is indecency more indecent if it is grave, or more indecent if it is gay? For my part, I belong to an old school in this matter. When a book or a play strikes me as a crime, I am not disarmed by being told that it is a serious crime. If a man has written something vile, I am not comforted by the explanation that he quite meant to do it. I know all the evils of flippancy; I do not like the man who laughs at the sight of virtue. But I prefer him to the man who weeps at the sight of virtue and complains bitterly of there being any such thing. I am not reassured, when ethics are as wild as cannibalism, by the fact that they are also as grave and sincere as suicide. — G.K. Chesterton

I am just diving into life again. I just have nothing new to offer right now as an idea for a book. I feel like if I were to write something, I would probably repeat the same idea in a different story. — Karan Bajaj

I am very grateful to the electronic world for making my life easier, but there is something about holding a book - the smell and the world of association. Even when e-books are perfected, as they surely will be, it will be like being in bed with a very well-made robot rather than a warm, soft, human being whom you love. — Anne Fadiman

I have to admit that I am really partial to the look and feel of a book. I have been that way my entire life. I like the weight, look, and feel of a book. I enjoy turning the pages, and frequently scan the spines of my many books on the wall, each title a reminder of the stored information and creative thoughts contained therein. — Al Seckel

You think I like this?" I say defensively. "Trust me, I don't need this headache in my life." I swallow a mouthful of beer. "Hey. You know Twilight?" He blinks. "Excuse me?" "Twilight. The vampire book." His wary eyes study my face. "What about it?" "Okay, so you know how Bella's blood is extra special? Like how it gives Edward a raging boner every time he's around her?" "Are you fucking with me right now?" I ignore that. "Do you think it happens in real life? Pheromones and all that crap. Is it a bullshit theory some horndog dreamed up so he could justify why he's attracted to his mother or some shit? Or is there actually a biological reason why we're drawn to certain people? Like goddamn Twilight. Edward wants her on a biological level, right?" "Are you seriously dissecting Twilight right now?" God, I am. This is what Allie has reduced me to. A sad, pathetic loser who goes to a bar and forces his friend to participate in a Twilight book club. — Elle Kennedy

I sent letters of enquiry to all persons whose names were given, and received not one reply. There are several ways of explaining. One is that it is probable that persons who have experiences such as those told of in this book, receive so many "crank letters" that they answer none. Dear me - once upon a time, I enjoyed a sense of amusement and superiority toward "cranks". And now here am I, a "crank", myself. Like most writers, I have the moralist somewhere in my composition, and here I warn - take care, oh, reader, with whom you are amused, unless you enjoy laughing at yourself. — Charles Fort

I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping. Weird I am, I know(...)You either get it or you don't. — Niall Williams

In setting down these recollections of my early years so far removed from their unfolding, I am fooled, as all are, by time itself. My parents, long gone from my world, live again. Memory, which so confounds our waking life with anticipation and regret, may well be our one true earthly consolation when time slips out of joint." Chapter 6, The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

"Assembled in a small circle, our faces glowed in the flickering light of the campfire, signs of anxious weariness in our tired eyes, but the meal would prove revitalizing. As the fire burnt down and our bellies filled, a calm complacency settled upon us, like a blanket drawn around our shoulders by absent mothers." Chapter 20, The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue — Keith Donohue

God, Himself, wrote the 10 into stone with his own finger. He told the epic of mankind, our origins and our future, in a book. For me, there is no more noble a cause and no more honorable a vocation than to say, like Him, I am a writer. — Gerard De Marigny

If I like hardcore straight-edge punk music, gentle psychedelic folk music, gangster rap, indie-rock with a lot of guitar pedals, and I find inspiration from all these things in different songs of mine, shouldn't I be allowed to make any of this kind of music that I want? And it's the same for the comic books, why should I only make autobiographical stories? Or only political stories? Or only superhero stories? Or only comedy stories? I am a bit creatively desperate, when I sit with a pen and paper I am desperate for ANY idea that makes me excited, I don't care what kind of idea it is! — Jeffrey Lewis

What I would most like to think they would take away, is what I take away when I read my favorite books. Which is the knowledge that there is always somewhere you can go, that you love, and where you're safe. And that's how I feel about my favorite books, wherever I am, if I've got that book with me, I've got a place where I can go and be happy. So if that place is Hogwarts for anyone, then I couldn't be more honored or humbled. — J.K. Rowling

In a sense, this book is not an autobiography but a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know. Yes, these events are true, yet sometimes they seemed to have happened to someone else, and I often felt like a curious onlooker or someone trying to remember a dream. I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years. — Steve Martin

Was a book by Arthur Raistrick called Quakers in Science and Industry and I glanced through it for a few minutes, then carried it to a nearby chair and sat reading for about half an hour, so unexpectedly absorbed did I become. I hadn't realized it, but Quakers in the Darbys' day were a bullied and downtrodden minority in Britain. Excluded from conventional pursuits like politics and academia, they became big in industry and commerce, particularly, for some reason, in banking and the manufacture of chocolate. The Barclays and Lloyds banking families and the Cadburys, Frys, and Rowntrees of chocolate renown were all Quakers. They and many others made Britain a more dynamic and wealthy place entirely as a consequence of being treated shabbily by it. It had never occurred to me to be unkind to a Quaker, but if that's what it takes to get the country back on its feet again, I am prepared to consider it. - — Bill Bryson

Most of the books I have are indicators of my insecurity. I really wanted to be an intellectual. I really wanted to understand Sartre. I thought that was what made people smart. I have tried to read Being and Nothingness no fewer than twenty times in my life. I really thought that every answer had to be in that book. Maybe it is. The truth is, I can't read anything with any distance. Every book is a self-help book to me. Just having them makes me feel better. I underline profusely but I don't retain much. Reading is like a drug. When I am reading from these books it feels like I am thinking what is being read, and that gives me a rush. That is enough. I glean what I can. I finish some of the unfinished thoughts lingering around in my head by adding the thoughts of geniuses and I build from there. There are bookmarks in most of the denser tomes at around page 20 to 40 because that was where I said, "I get it." Then I put them back on the shelf. — Marc Maron

I love outsider stories. And I also like a lot of genre fiction, too. So I wanted to write a literary book that flirted with thriller and fantasy and even science fiction. I wanted the coming-of-age story and the love story to be about "outsiderdom" - one of the themes I am most interested in. — Porochista Khakpour

I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don't say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you. — Anais Nin

Although my road to writing seems like it may have come easily, there were a few bumps in that road. I didn't get a lot of encouragement from friends, although my family were great supporters. I also had many ... what you would call "mind-boggling" moments, when I would doubt myself and what I was writing. It has been said that we, ourselves, are our own worst critics.
All the hard work had payed off though, and I created a children's book that I am proud of, and an unforgettable little girl that will touch the hearts of many."-Nina Jean Slack — Nina Jean Slack

Ford," insisted Arthur, "I don't know if this sounds like a silly question, but what am I doing here?" "Well, you know that," said Ford. "I rescued you from the Earth." "And what's happened to the Earth?" "Ah. It's been demolished." "Has it," said Arthur levelly. "Yes. It just boiled away into space." "Look," said Arthur, "I'm a bit upset about that." Ford frowned to himself and seemed to roll the thought around his mind. "Yes, I can understand that," he said at last. "Understand that!" shouted Arthur. "Understand that!" Ford sprang up. "Keep looking at the book!" he hissed urgently. "What?" "Don't Panic." "I'm not panicking!" "Yes, you are. — Anonymous

Grampa took Mary Ellen inside away from the crowd. "Now, child, I am going to show you what my father showed me, and his father before," he said quietly. He spooned the honey onto the cover of one of her books. "Taste," he said, almost in a whisper ... "There is such sweetness inside of that book too!" he said thoughtfully. "Such things ... adventure, knowledge and wisdom. But these things do not come easily. You have to pursue them. Just like we ran after the bees to find their tree, so you must also chase these things through the pages of a book! — Patricia Polacco

And if we really want to stay current and relevant, we have to use social media. And by that I mean Facebook. There are one billion people on Facebook. Maybe older people should have our own social media. We can call it What Did That Doctor Do to Your Face Book? In fact, we can have our own text and Facebook abbreviations. We can have our own WTF, LOL, and LMAO. GNIB: Good news, it's benign. OMG: Oh, my gout. DMMLIMNWD: Don't make me laugh, I'm not wearing Depends. WAI: Where am I? ITIHSBCR: I think I had sex but can't remember. ILI: I like Ike. TKDC: The kids didn't call. DTLSTY: Does this look swollen to you? CTDMELOFM: Call the doctor - my erection lasted over four minutes. PAMUHNASIHSB: Put a mirror under his nose and see if he's still breathing. Bottom line: we can't be dial-up in a Wi-Fi world. — Billy Crystal

About ten days ago I got started on a new book, and am completely, brazenly devoted to it: my hair is uncut, my letters are unwritten, the house is a shambles, and I sit here as happy as Mrs. Jellaby, though I am in 1836, not Africa. It won't go on like this, I shall fall over some obstacle, and wake out of my dreams with a black eye and broken shins: but while it does last, I daren't interrupt it. I haven't had such a spell of writing for nearly three years. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

I am reading The Lord of the Rings. I suddenly wanted to. I almost know it by heart, but I can still sink right into it. I know no other book that is so much like going on a journey. When I put it down to this, I feel as if I am also waiting with Pippin for the echoes of that stone down the well. — Jo Walton

Ghosts can haunt damned near anything. I have heard them in the breathy voice of a song and seen them between the covers of a book. They have hidden in trees so that their faces peer out of the bark, and hovered beneath the silver surface of water. They disguise themselves as cracks in concrete or come calling in a delirium of fever. On summer days they keep pace like the shadow of our shadow. They lurk in the breath of young girls who give us our first kiss. I've seen men who were haunted to the point of madness by things that never were and things that should have been. I've seen ghosts in the lines on a woman's face and heard them in the jangling of keys. The ghosts in fire freeze and the ghosts in ice burn. Some died long ago; some were never born. Some ride the blood in my veins until it reaches my brain. Sometimes I even mistake myself for one. Sometimes I am one. — Damien Echols

I love to read. I remember hearing that the average author takes two years to write a book. So when I read a book, I feel like I am getting two years of life experiences. — Mark Batterson

Manage me, I am a mess, swept under the rug of yesterday's home improvement, a whimsical urge tossed aside for the easy reassurance of home and comfort. I am the photograph tucked away as a book-mark, in a book left half unread, once reopened to find memories crawling back into peripheral sight, faded, creased and lonely. I long to be admired, long to be held, torn and laughed at, laughed with, like a distant relative or an old friend breathing in their last breath. I missed the moment when time collapsed and memory was erased, replaced by finicky social experiments, lost in the blur of intoxication, sucked through multi-colored bendy-straws, making way for a spinning world where hub-caps stood still, but our vision didn't. If I could leave you with only one thing, it would be small, foldable, and made from trees, with a few careless words, scribbled in blue; Take a minute to learn me, take a moment to love me, because I need your love to live,and without it, I am nothing. — Alex Gaskarth

I'm handed faith like a sealed package on a strange-looking platter and am expected to accept it without opening it. I'm handed science, like a knife on a plate, to cut the folios of a book whose pages are blank. I'm handed doubt, like dust inside a box
but why give me a box if all it contains is dust? — Fernando Pessoa

I started the first drafts of the book during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't thinking at all about kids at the time. But I was thinking. A lot. About everything. I wish I could capture that head-space again; everything meant something to me in college. Every leaf, every sound, every lecture, every textbook. It's like I was on drugs, 24/7. I am glad I was able to pair that ceaseless pondering with plenty of time to write. What came of that time was the first draft of the novel, a lengthy, unnecessarily angst-driven pile of crap. Years later, with Zoloft, I approached the novel with a more level head, and came away with a much, much better novel. My advice to writers, I suppose, is write your novel when you feel like shit; edit when you feel great. — Caleb J. Ross

What about you?" I ask her. "What do you think I should read next?" She takes my hand and leads me to the children's section. She looks around for a second, then heads over to a display at the front. I see a certain green book sitting there and panic. "No! Not that one!" I say. But she isn't reaching for the green book. She's reaching for Harold and the Purple Crayon. "What could you possibly have against Harold and the Purple Crayon?" she asks. "I'm sorry. I thought you were heading for The Giving Tree." Rhiannon looks at me like I'm an insane duck. "I absolutely HATE The Giving Tree." I am so relieved. "Thank goodness. That would've been the end of us, had that been your favorite book." "Here - take my arms! Take my legs!" "Take my head! Take my shoulders!" "Because that's what love's about!" "That kid is, like, the jerk of the century," I say, relieved that Rhiannon will know what I mean. "The biggest jerk in the history of all literature, — David Levithan

I like embracing kind of normal forms but am always trying to approach them as if no one's ever done that before. As if I'm literally the first person to ever write a book. — Miranda July

Creative ideas, in my opinion, show their value in that, like keys, they help to "unlock" hitherto unintelligible connections of facts and thus enable man to penetrate deeper into the mystery of life. I am convinced that Jung's ideas can serve in this way to find and interpret new facts in many fields of science (and also everyday life) simultaneously leading the individual to a more balanced, more ethical, and wider conscious outlook. If the reader should feel stimulated to work further on the investigation and assimilation of the unconscious-which always begins by working on oneself-the purpose of this introductory book would be fulfilled. — C. G. Jung

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished. — Haruki Murakami

Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles. — Gustave Flaubert

This is all I have to give you - me." He lifts his shoulders and his vulnerability rips away a little piece of my heart. "A book with blank pages, weathered edges, and eraser marks, that's what I am. I need you to paint my future, write my story in permanent marker, just like the mark you left on my heart the day we met. — Jewel E. Ann

I am shocked to find that some people think a 2 star 'I liked it' rating is a bad rating. What? I liked it. I LIKED it! That means I read the whole thing, to the last page, in spite of my life raining comets on me. It's a good book that survives the reading process with me. If a book is so-so, it ends up under the bed somewhere, or maybe under a stinky judo bag in the back of the van. So a 2 star from me means,yes, I liked the book, and I'd loan it to a friend and it went everywhere in my jacket pocket or purse until I finished it. A 3 star means that I've ignored friends to finish it and my sink is full of dirty dishes. A 4 star means I'm probably in trouble with my editor for missing a deadline because I was reading this book. But I want you to know ... I don't finish books I don't like. There's too many good ones out there waiting to be found. Robin Hobb, author — Robin Hobb

Although I've written a few (a very few) poems over the years, I am not a natural poet ... and I remain in awe of people who are. The ability to evoke deep emotion, reveal a new facet of the world, or condense an entire story into the limited space and form of a poem (or likewise, of a good song lyric, or the text for a children's picture book) seems like pure magic to me. — Terri Windling

But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like some one in a book. — E. M. Forster

I would like to have your sureness. I am waiting for love, the core of a woman's life."
Don't wait for it," I said. "Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. And then love will come to you, then it comes to you. It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened to me. — Anais Nin