Quotes & Sayings About Mystery Books

I've deprived my family in order to buy books. No doubt there is a special punishment in hell for such self-indulgence. Perhaps I shall be struck with blindness among the rarest known to men. — I.J. Parker

For after all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brillant scholars, or have been written in fine books, and embellished in fine language with finer cover, man - all man- is still confronted with the Great Mystery.
Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux — Helene Lapaire Justus

I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart. — Mary Oliver

In spite of the seven thousand books of expert advice, the right way to disciplne a child is still a mystery to most fathers and ... mothers Only your grandmother and Genghis Khan know how to do it. — Bill Cosby

People sometimes act as though owning books you haven't read constitutes a charade or pretense, but for me, there's a lovely mystery and pregnancy about a book that hasn't given itself over to you yet--sometimes I'm the most inspired by imagining what the contents of an unread book might be. ~ Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude — Leah Price

After I had written seventeen full-length mysteries, two volumes of mini-mysteries, a travel guide and some quiz books, not to mention a spin-off Roman Mystery Scrolls series, I thought it was time I moved to new historical pastures. — Caroline Lawrence

She closed her eyes briefly, feeling sick. Olivia had experienced strangulation before. Having to look directly into the face of the person who was killing you made the experience beyond awful. But there were worse things than that. Staring into the void of unresolved memory, living an eternal mystery, waking up night after night seeing the face of someone you desperately wanted to save but having not the slightest clue how to do it - all that was worse. If going through with this experience gave her the answers she needed, if it gave her peace, it would be well worth one-hundred-and-thirty seconds of fear and pain. — Leslie Parrish

What do you think books will look like 50 years from now. — M. Scott

Perhaps I was also afraid the little voice in the back of my head telling me I had no idea what I was doing was right. I didn't have any idea what I was doing; if I had, things would be different now. Although, thoughts like this led the other little voice inside my head to point out if I wasn't here, or if I didn't know what I was doing, Martin would be a chalk outline of some goo on the pavement. I sighed audibly and put my head on my desk. If only all the voices in my head could just get along. I laughed at the absurdity. I must be clinically insane. — G.K. Parks

Learning comes from books; penetration of a mystery from suffering. — Fulton J. Sheen

How destiny plays games so thrilling,
both stay in the same building.
His books declared for the best seller of the year,
and she lives in the apartment to his but upstairs.
He is making fame, she has committed suicide severe.


The same window of the tall building instigated,
such varied colors.

In the woman-frustration and fear.
In the man- an inspiration so rare.
They share the same height, same sight,
of the same building.
From which,
one flew like kite and the other down right. — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. — George Orwell

Book burning is a charming old custom, hallowed by antiquity. It has been practiced for centuries by fascists, communists, atheists, school children, rival authors, and tired librarians. Like everything of importance since the invention of the cloak and the shroud, its origins are cloaked in mystery and shrouded in secrecy. Some scholars believe that the first instance of book burning occurred in the Middle Ages, when a monk was trying to illuminate a manuscript. All agree that book burning was almost non-existent during the period when books were made of stone. — Richard Armour

She remembers this phrase from his final months of law school, when he brought home the books on starting up a business. He'd read ravenously for several weeks and then predicted: "Well, darling, we're going to be rich." Now he slaps shut the last of his books and announces, with equal assurance: "We're all going to die. — Jacob Appel

If there is no mystery, for the artist, to solve inside of his art, then there's no point in it ... for me, every act of art is the act of solving a mystery. — Truman Capote

She would sit with picture books in her little lap before she even knew how to read, studying the writing as though all the mystery and wonder of the world were contained in the strange, indecipherable symbols. — Molly Ringwald

Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books ... But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside, — Malala Yousafzai

I have tread all three of his books and they held me spellbound interesting story. Its fiction based on fact ... mmm I like! — Harold Alvin

Books are like ice cream; there is a flavor for everyone! — K. Lamb

It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery? And what is it that attracts us? The crime, or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable? — Anthony Horowitz

I decided to read something I normally hate: a cosy mystery. You know one of those mysteries where everything is tidily wrapped up at the end and everyone lives happily ever after? An Agatha Christie kind of mystery. They are so not my thing. But then someone was raving about Barbara Neely's Blanche White books and they sounded interesting. — Justine Larbalestier

You should go upstairs and relax a little. Take a nap or read one of those books that make your cheeks burn."
She playfully squinted at him. "How would you know what I look like when I read?"
He leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table. "I like watching you read."
"Really?" she questioned.
"Why?"
"It's sexy the way you react to the stories," he whispered. "Your gestures are usually simple like a giggle or a gasp. But occasionally, your nipples harden. — Stacey O'Neale

Her eyes popped open in time to see flames shoot up behind the first-floor windows of Angie's Books. Angie! Where was Angie? Where were her children? The bookstore owner lived in the apartment above her shop with sixteen-year-old Beth and twelve-year-old Bradley.
The Moosetookalook Fire Department was located right next door, housed in part of the town's redbrick municipal building. The overhead door had already been raised. As Liss watched, unable to move, unable to look away, the truck pulled out, maneuvering so that it could get closer to the burning building. — Kaitlyn Dunnett

Every book is a mystery. And if you read all the books ever written, it's like you've read one giant mystery. And no matter how much you learn, you just keep on learning there is so much more you need to learn. — Sherman Alexie

Okay, so it's like each of these books is a mystery. Every book is a mystery. And if you read all of the books ever written, it's like you've read one giant mystery. And no matter how much you learn, you keep on learning so much more you need to learn. — Sherman Alexie

She took particular comfort in certain familiar sights and sounds that marked her day: the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the pale figures sprawled silent and motionless over their reading, the reassuring feel of her book cart as she wheeled it down the aisle, and the books themselves, symbols of order on their backs - young adulthood reduced to "YA," mystery reduced to a tiny red skull. — T.E.D. Klein

In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life. — Ken Wilber

And then you grew up, went to school, and began to 'philosophize,' didn't you? We all go through the same thing. It seems that during adolescence a person's inner life is suddenly weakened, stripped of its natural courage. In his thinking he no longer dares stand face to face with reality or mystery; he begins to see them through the opinions of 'grown-ups,' through books and courses and professors. Still, a voice remains which is not completely muffled and which cries out every so often - every time its gag is loosened by an unexpected jolt in the routine. The voice cries out its great questioning of everything, but we stifle it again right away. — Rene Daumal

I would stay at my grandma's house on my birthday every year and I remember she had a bookshelf of murder mystery books along with really frightening books, like one on Jack the Ripper. She also had a poster of a shark in the closet which also terrified me at the time. — Christopher Bollen

We become attached to certain characters in novels, mostly because they have some mystery attaching to them. We re-read the books, but we're still left wanting to know more. In my own case, it was 'Great Expectations' and Miss Havisham in particular. Luckily, writers have the option of making up the knowledge that reading doesn't supply. — Ronald Frame

The dragon took his other arm. But he is still a dragonslayer, no matter what. — Ruth Ford Elward

I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?' — Sophie Hannah

The luminescent flow of a sunbathed garden - illuminating the shifting colors of its inhabitants - echoed in my memory as I opened the antique bookstore door in the shaft of window light.
The books, like the flowers of the garden, awaited me with the thrill of a new mystery. — Gina Marinello-Sweeney

The shriek cut thinly though the drizzling dimness, holding for a long moment. At last it broadened and dropped to the old. — Natalie Babbitt

...it was important to hit the ground running and not fall into the lifestyle traps of newly found free time. — Alex Adam

Ian once suggested that in addition to the mystery stickers and the sci-fi and animal ones, there should be special stickers for books with happy endings, books with sad endings, books that will trick you into reading the next in the series. 'There should be ones with big teardrops,' he said, 'like for the side of Where the Red Fern Grows. Because otherwise it isn't fair. Like maybe you're accidentally reading it in public, and then everyone will make fun of you for crying.' But what could I affix to the marvelous and perplexing tale of Ian Drake? A little blue sticker with a question mark, maybe. Crossed fingers. A penny in a fountain. — Rebecca Makkai

Real mystery - the very reason to read (and certainly write) any book - was to them a thing to dismantle, distill and mine out into rubble they could tyrannize into sorry but more permanent explanations; monuments to themselves, in other words. In my view all teachers should be required to stop teaching at age thirty-two and not allowed to resume until they're sixty-five, so that they can live their lives, not teach them away - live lives full of ambiguity and transience and regret and wonder, be asked to explain nothing in public until very near the end when they can't do anything else.
Explaining is where we all get into trouble. — Richard Ford

Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story. — Martha Grimes

Desire overwhelmed me once she had gone. But it was not a desire for Homer. I had to return to the library. I could already smell the books' muskiness and in my mind turned over pages with as many differing textures as a forest; pages that were brittle and fragile which had to be coaxed to turn; pages that were soft and scented, presenting their words as if the were a gift in the palm of a hand, and pages that fell open heavily of their own accord as if weighted by the importance of their message. But more than anything else I was compelled by their mystery, by all the stories they had yet to tell me.
'I have to go to the library, Homer. I have to be with the books. — Christine Aziz

I am hoping to work with writers publishing books for first time, since I of course remember what that experience is like. It's all a bit of a mystery for new authors who don't know what to expect. — Rebecca Stead

Reading Chekhov, I felt not happy, exactly, but as close to happiness as I knew I was likely to come. And it occurred to me that this was the pleasure and mystery of reading, as well as the answer to those who say that books will disappear. For now, books are still the best way of taking great art and its consolations along with us on a bus. — Francine Prose

My books are shelved in different places, depending on the bookstore. Sometimes they can be found in the Mystery section, sometimes in the Humor department, and occasionally even in the Literature aisle, which is somewhat astounding. — Carl Hiaasen

I believe the great artists of the future will use fewer words, copy fewer things, essays will be shorter in words and longer in meaning. There will be a battle against obscurity. Effort will be made to put everything plain, out in the open. By this means we will enter into the real mystery. There will be fewer things said and done, but each thing will be fuller and will receive fuller consideration. Now we waste. There is too much "Art," too much "decoration," too many things are made, too many amusements wasted. Not enough is fully considered. We must paint only what is important to us, must not respond to outside demands. They do not know what they want, or what we have to give. — Basic Books

It is only a true mystery that can never be solved. — Paul Norris

The Church is enamored with skilled orators and performers working the stage like a choreographed Broadway play. Others profess to talk about how Jesus ministry was mere story telling like through parables and that is why it was so effective. It is though there is some magical incantation, if we just repeat then things will happen. It is like the current modernity movement in the church, dumb it down that is the problem. If we just take away the mystery and otherness of God then we will know and see God, really? — Jonah Books

Payne sought clarification. "Vertical or horizontal?"
"Horizontal, of course."
"Sorry but I can't help you."
"Will you pipe down for a minute? Naturally she was dead since I work at a cemetery. Her face struck a chord though. So, I rummaged around in the old Rory memory bank, and Emily is what rings a bell. Didn't we go to school with an Emily? Tenth or eleventh grade, if I recall it correctly. — Ed Lynskey

We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books. — Christopher Hitchens

I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books. — Elmore Leonard

Demon," the woman spat onto the road. "Well, girl, thank you. I grant no one's wishes and so you mark me 'demon.' I grant no wishes and I do as I see fit to be done. I will not answer to you, girl, nor to any one of yours, but I will always look. I am not the one who turns away. — Tamara Rendell

I read about the rising tide of illegal drug cartels moving their products from more developed countries to the United States, while using the Caribbean as a conduit. My home is Jamaica, and I'm a former international flight attendant, so I began to think about how I could use my personal background to spotlight issues surrounding the illicit drug trade, while also drawing in readers with a captivating story. — Norma Jennings

Many years ago I had two small children, and I wanted to be able to be home when they got home from school. And I didn't like the direction journalism was taking. I thought if I could write books, I could work at home and have the best of both worlds. I wrote my first mystery while still working full time, and it didn't sell, but the next one did sell, so I quit my job for the world of fiction. Scary, but I've never regretted it for a single day. — Mary Kay Andrews

I have read all of James Patterson's Books except for the last 5.I have over 80 of his books. — Bridget Of Sweden

Some of the most relaxing weekends I have ever enjoyed were those I spent quietly with a sense of all work to date completed, and an absorbing mystery. — Aung San Suu Kyi

People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better, and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore, and people need to get used to that. — Cormac McCarthy

If you'd died on me, I would've taken it out on your corpse."

Raven Heartstone Celenti to Paladin Carison Destine — Ruth Ford Elward

The trick in writing children's books is to set up danger, mystery and excitement on page one. Force the kid to turn the page ... Then in the middle of each chapter there's a dramatic point of excitement, and at chapter's end, a cliffhanger. — Jerry West

He watched her walk away with a sway in her hips that tossed her long, milk-chocolate-colored ponytail from side to side. — Meg Knight

I had read it some time ago but was so completely immersed that I retained nothing. This has been an intermittent, lifelong enigma. Through early adolescence I sat and read for hours in a small grove of weed trees near the railroad track in Germantown. Like Gumby I would enter a book wholeheartedly and sometimes venture so deeply it was as if I were living within it. I finished many books in such a manner there, closing the covers ecstatically yet having no memory of the content by the time I returned home. This disturbed me but I kept this strange affliction to myself. I look at the covers of such books and their contents remain a mystery that I cannot bring myself to solve. Certain books I loved and lived within yet cannot remember. — Patti Smith

I have no little insight into the feelings of furniture, and treat books and prints with a reasonable consideration. How some people use their pictures, for instance, is a mystery to me; very revolting all the same
portraits obliged to face each other for ever
prints put together in portfolios. — Robert Browning

He really just wanted to blurt out, 'My Grandma's dead', but he knew that when it came to it, the words would stick like pebbles in his throat. — Helen Laycock

This work is the link between my Dear Natalie piece and my upcoming Agatha work. It bridges that lapse in time and shows how my thinking has changed. It shows me telling a story through the surreal and trying to use thought fragments alone to show a tortured existence. This piece was written after the Dear Natalies and before the Agatha mystery, but it is meant to be read after you've already read both.
This book is a bridge between two books, which would make it a bridge between two bridges. That's strange, but I've seen stranger. Like the time I woke up in a fish tank, having morphed into a goldfish during my sleep. I still fear the sound of a flushing toilet, and since then I refuse to let myself fall asleep while wearing flippers.
This book is 3,088 words of pure nonsense, strung together like pearls hurled at bacon. Yum! — Jarod Kintz

Books make such good friends and quiet neighbors. — Catriona McPherson

There was nothing strange about it. Jed and i were on a covert mission. We had dinoculars, jungle, a quarry, a threat, the hidden presence of AK-47s and slanted eyes. The only missing element was a Doors soundtrack. — Alex Garland

I don't think the problem is that people don't read enough mystery books, but that people don't read. — Thomas Perry

Listen to me you piece of shit, if you ever give the press information about me, my parents or even breathe a word about me to anyone ever again, I swear to god I will make it my mission to make your life a living hell. And, believe me I'll do it with a smile on my face the whole time. You're a worthless excuse for a Detective and everyone here knows it. You've screwed your way to the top and backstabbed Gena to get into your Captain's good books. Well look around you honey, you're a real star. No one stopped Gena or me taking you on. I've currently got you in a hold, where I could snap your neck if I wanted to, and not one person is stepping forward to help you. Yeah, you've really made it. - Stephanie Carovella to Sandra Barton — Nina D'Angelo

There were fat cats and skinny cats. The long-tailed and the bobbed. The daring young leapers, and the old windowsill sleepers. Balls of waddling fluff, smooth-coated prowlers, and hairless ones that looked fragile and wise. The tiger-striped, the ring-tailed, and the ones with matching coloured socks and mittens. There were tabbies and calicos. Manx and Persians. Siamese and Bombay. Ragdolls and Birmans. Maine Coons and Russian Blues. There were Snowshoes and Somalis, Tonkinese and Turkish, and many, many more. Brown and beige and orange and grey and black and white and silver cats, each with gleaming eyes of emerald, or sapphire, or amber. A rainbow of precious stones. — Brooke Burgess

Merry Christmas!' someone shouted.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
'Merry Christmas!'
'Merry Christmas!'
'C-cookies for ever'body!' Sammy hollered. And looking both ways, they all fled across to the light, and the warmth, and the books, and the mystery. — Jan Karon

I have written a few children's books. The first book that I wrote was for children. It was called 'The Package', and it was a mystery story in pictures. It had no words. — Laurie Anderson

We finish our own story. The details of our journey are still a mystery. — Steven Cuoco

Miss Lasqueti consumed mostly crime thrillers, which constantly seemed to disappoint her. I suspect that for her the world was more accidental than any book's plot. Twice I saw her so irritated by a mystery that she half rose from the shadow of her chair and flung the paperback over the railing into the sea. — Michael Ondaatje

The Book of Books Within this ample volume lies The mystery of mysteries. Happiest they of human race To whom their God has given grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch, to force the way; But better had they ne'er been born That read to doubt or read to scorn. — Walter Scott

There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book takes the reader into a new world of experience; it is an experiment. A bad book, unless the writing is inept, reinforces the intransigent attitude of the reader not to experiment with a new world. Since there are criminals and psychopaths and sociopaths in all my novels they are in a way psychological thrillers. — John Franklin Bardin

Outside his office my father had a framed copy of a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to his son's teacher, translated into Pashto. It is a very beautiful letter, full of good advice. "Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books ... But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside," it says. "Teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. — Malala Yousafzai

I really like the spooky twists and the intense mystery. I think the various plot devices work really well for TV, but they are still also in the spirit of Pretty Little Liars as a whole. I also really liked Spencer's breakdown in the previous season after Toby betrayed her. The girls have had breakdowns of sorts in the books, so it was fun to see that on-screen. — Sara Shepard

My dad liked more macho adventure books like Shogun or spy novels. My mother reads murder mysteries. In fact, so does her mother, my grandma. That's where I trace the familial line of murder mystery obsession. — Christopher Bollen

I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful. — Andrew Clements

I don't read thrillers, romance or mystery, and I don't read self-help books because I don't believe in shortcuts and loopholes. — Isabel Allende

For the novelist or poet, for the scientist or artist, the question is not where do ideas come from, the question is how they come. The how is the mystery. The how is fragile. — E.L. Konigsburg

Two days of wedded bliss and dead dragons. Any regrets yet?"

"Not a one. — Ruth Ford Elward

You and I. We're going back. People are dying because of this beast. It must be stopped. And we will take the dragon this time, and water the ground with its blood. — Ruth Ford Elward

I can't say that you should extract this or that value from my books explicitly. They are up for interpretation. In terms of the obligation, I think we're all individuals on this planet, trying to scratch our way through the day, and if you're writing a book exposing atrocities in Rwanda or writing a murder mystery set in a mountain village, I think both ways of spending you time are valid and both books are probably fine to read. — Colson Whitehead

My father was sleepless most of his life. So by the age of five, I was awake with him all night long, watching bad television or we'd lie in the same bed, and I'd read my comic books while he read his latest spy or mystery novel. — Sherman Alexie

As a kid, I loved doing puzzles, solving riddles, and reading mystery books. I also loved animals and always had pets. — Bonnie Bassler

Thats why i'm staying here,"claire said."with you.tonight."shane took in a deep breath."clothes stay on." "mostly,"she agreed. "you know,your parents really are right about me."claire sighed."no,they're not.nobody knows you at all,i think.not your dad,not even michael.your a deep,dark mystery,shane."he kissed her for the first time since she'd entered the room,a warm press of lips to her forehead."i'm an open book." she smiled."i like books." "hey,we've got something in common." i'm taking off my shoes." "fine.shoes off." "and my pants." "dont push it claire. — Rachel Caine

All my scripts have artistic backgrounds
ballet, concert hall, opera
and all the suspects and corpses are cultured, maybe I'll do one about the rare book business in your honor, do you want to be the murderer or the corpse? — Helene Hanff

Out from behind the desk where he'd been sitting, hidden by the piles of books, appeared a bespectacled, green-eyed man in a green plaid suit. His thick white hair was shaggy and mussed, his nose was rather large and lumpy like a vegetable, and although it was clear he had recently shaved, he appeared to have done so without benefit of a mirror, for here and there upon his neck and chin were nicks from a razor, and occasional white whiskers that he'd missed altogether. This was Mr. Benedict. — Trenton Lee Stewart

Bite me. -Lieutenant Eve Dallas, from any of the In Death books. — J.D. Robb

I grew up reading comic books, pulp books, mystery and science fiction and fantasy. I'm a geek; I make no pretensions otherwise. It's the stuff that I love writing about. I like creating worlds. — David S.Goyer

All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual ... The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. — G.K. Chesterton

In 1986 we were trying to help women get in print, stay in print, and come to the attention of booksellers and libraries. At that time, books by men mystery writers were reviewed seven times as often as books by women. — Sara Paretsky

Very good book! you're gonna have to read this amazing book. the main characters are Valkyrie Cain and the bony Skulduggery Pleasant and they have a good sense of humour. I think that Derek had done a good job at expressing the character's feelings and facial expressions. I love it how in every book there is a bad person and always tries to take over the world and Valkyrie tries to stop them.
Keep going
Derek Landy!
Write more books please!!! — Derek Landy

Always just a brainstorm away from our next disaster ... — Birgit Pratcher

Cats and books are my universe. Both are infinitely fascinating and full of mystery. — Rai Aren

To find the books end,
cross the ancient wood to the mystic isle.
Until then, prepare yourself
for the coming battle ...
AND TRUST NO ONE. — Michelle Zink

Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year ... I just wish some of them were harder to figure out. — Martin Cruz Smith

So much for the bimbo alert; if she read books like that, then there was a light on upstairs, above the splendid front porch. — C.I. Dennis

For me to read a book is still
And always will be quite a thrill.
For me to read a book is like
A boy when he rides his new two wheel bike.
And when a bird comes north in spring
It's natural for her to sing.
I like to read books of poems and history
Books of fiction and of mystery.
And what is more, I'll read until I'm grown
And then I'll write books of my own. — Johanna Hurwitz

If you want to know what we are, look at the men reading books, searching in the dark pages of history for the lost word, the key to the mystery of the living peace. We are factory hands, field hands, mill hands, searching, building and molding structures. We are doctors, scientists, chemists discovering and eliminating disease, hunger and antagonism. We are soldiers, Navy men, citizens, guarding the imperishable dreams of our fathers to live in freedom. We are the living dream of dead men. We are the living spirit of free men. — Carlos Bulosan

But the other half of my motivation came from farther back in my brain, in the curious part that I inherited. It came from the spot in my skull that feels the burning need to unravel puzzles, finish crosswords, indulge in Internet games, and read all the mystery books I can get my grubby little paws on. Like it or not, need it or not, and want it or not, I can't leave a good mystery alone. — Cherie Priest

This place is a mystery. A sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it & the soul of those who read it & lived it & dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down it's pages, it's spirit grows & strengthens. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands, a new spirit ... — Carlos Ruiz Zafon