Not Book Quotes & Sayings

I have spoken, and I was understood. It's not like I'm a tragic person who wasn't understood. All those books are in print, all those movies are still out there, the audience gets younger. So I don't have that "I've got to do one thing before I die." I did it. — John Waters

I'm so sorry. I don't think the etiquette manuals cover this sort of situation." He leaned in close, his lips all but grazing her neck, and inhaled. "Mmm. You smell good, too."
She nearly choked. Took a step backwards, until her back met cold stone. "Th-thank you."
"That's better. May I kiss you?" His finger dipped into her shirt collar, stroking the tender nape of her neck.
"I d-don't th-think that's a good idea."
"Why not? We're alone." His hands were at her waist.
Her lungs felt tight and much too small. "Wh-what if somebody comes in?"
He considered for a moment. "Well, I suppose they'll think I fancy grubby little boys. — Y.S. Lee

I wanted to possess all the books I had already read, as well as all those I had not - every book in the whole wide world, in other words. — Andy Miller

The Bible is not, in other words, simply a list of true doctrines or a collection of proper moral commands - though it includes plenty of both. The Bible is not simply the record of what various people thought as they struggled to know God and follow him, though it is that as well. It is not simply the record of past revelations, as though what mattered were to study such things in the hopes that one might have one for oneself. It is the book whose whole narrative is about new creation, that is, about resurrection, so that when each of the gospels ends with the raising of Jesus from the dead, and when Revelation ends with new heavens and new earth populated by God's people risen from the dead, this should come not as a surprise but as the ultimate fulfillment of what the story had been about all along. — N. T. Wright

A great Tamil poet, given to decadence and debauchery, once said that the story of his life could serve as an example to the youth on how one should
not live. Having lived, or rather, having sleepwalked for ten years through the desolate wastelands of depression, I survived to reach the other side. I believe that this validates my claim to write this book for you. — Indu Muralidharan

Nevertheless, it bothered Vimes, even though he'd got really good at the noises and would go up against any man in his rendition of the HRUUUGH! But is this a book for a city kid? When would he ever hear these noises? In the city, the only sound those animals would make was "sizzle." But the nursery was full of the conspiracy with bah-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked.
One evening, after a trying day, he'd tried the Vimes street version:
Where's my daddy?
Is that my daddy?
He goes "Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!"
He is Foul Ol' Ron!
No, that's not my daddy!
It had been going really well when Vimes heard a meaningful little cough from the doorway, wherein stood Sybil. Next day, Young Sam, with a child's unerring instinct for this sort of thing, said "Buglit!" to Purity. And that, although Sybil never raised the subject even when they were alone, was that. From then on Sam stuck rigidly to the authorized version. — Terry Pratchett

I wanted to be a shoe designer, but I never thought it could be a profession. But what was the alternative? Doctor? Too dirty! Air-hostess? Maybe not! Then someone gave me a book on Roger Vivier, and, cheri, instantly I knew that was it! — Christian Louboutin

Court TV. I can't stop watching it. I am absolutely obsessed! If I'm not reading a book or spending time with my husband, my friends or my dog, I am watching Court TV. — Debra Messing

Knowledge exists in minds, not in books. Before what has been found can be used by practitioners, someone must organize it, integrate it, extract the message — Kenneth E. Boulding

Not long after the book came out I found myself being driven to a meeting
by a professor of electrical engineering in the graduate school I of MIT. He said that after reading the book he realized that his graduate students were using on him, and had used for the ten years and more he had been teaching there, all the evasive strategies I described in the book - mumble, guess-and-look, take a wild guess and see what happens, get the teacher to answer his own questions, etc.
But as I later realized, these are the games that all humans play when others
are sitting in judgment on them. — John Holt

For commercial books in a genre, readers' and editors' expectations may be fairly rigid. Some romance lines, for instance, issue fairly detailed writers' guidelines explaining exactly what must happen in a book they publish (and what must not). — Nancy Kress

If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn. — Mortimer J. Adler

I loved reading historical novels when I was young, but I definitely don't think I wrote one. When I read my book through, when it was completely done and in printed galleys, I was surprised by how uninterested in the passage of time and history the book seemed to be. Even though you can feel it all there, that's just not what it's focused on. — Danielle Dutton

You are not just going to vanish like this, Karou. This isn't some goddamn Narnia book. — Laini Taylor

Did you really mean what you said?" she asked softly. "If God Himself were waiting at Gloucester, you would not relinquish me?" He did not meet her gaze, but the muscles in his arms bunched beneath her hands as he pulled her close again. "I meant it, he whispered, burying his lips in her hair. — Marsha Canham

Why, if all the creatures in the world gathered together to make a single gnat and put a soul into it, they would not succeed!' No more than man can make a gnat can demons, according to another tradition, make anything smaller than a grain of barley. But those who favored the thaumaturgic interpretation of the Book of Yetsirah, and believed that a man or golem could be created with its help,...." Idea of the Golem p. 171 — Gershom Scholem

A person, for example, reads in adulthood a book that is important for him, and it makes him say, "How could I have lived without reading it!" and also, "What a pity I did not read it in my youth!" Well, these statements do not have much meaning, especially the second, because after he has read that book, his life becomes the life of a person who has read that book, and it is of little importance whether he read it early or late, because now his life before that reading also assumes a form shaped by that reading. — Italo Calvino

Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads. — Lord Chesterfield

Mindi Scott has a real talent for getting inside her protagonist's head. She sketches out Coley's story in grand swathes, and then paints in all the little details, so that you feel as though you are enmeshed in Coley's brain: thinking her thoughts, feeling her confusion, anger, and, in the end, pain. I just don't think it's possible to read this book and not identify with Coley in some way. — Amber Benson

The self-deception of slave owners and proponents of slavery is well documented by the historians Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in their book Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South. Slavery was not perceived by most slaveholders in the nineteenth century to be an exploitation of humans by other humans for economic gain; instead, slaveholders painted a portrait of slavery as a paternalistic and benign institution in which the slaves themselves were seen as not so different from all laborers - black and white - who toiled everywhere in both free and slave states; further, the South's "Christian slavery" was claimed to be superior. — Michael Shermer

The fact remains that books that really put gay people in the center, and especially books that do so in a way that is sexually explicit, tend not to get a great deal of mainstream attention: they don't tend to sell well, and they don't tend to win major awards. This makes the occasional exception, like Alan Hollinghurst, all the more remarkable. — Garth Greenwell

I've planned book tours for myself, whether or not anybody wants to hear what I have to say. I've weighed in on things like what the cover looks like, what the copy looks like, how it's going to be promoted - just every aspect of it. — Adam Mansbach

Not Eve, whose fault was only too much love, Which made her give this present to her dear, That what she tasted he likewise might prove, Whereby his knowledge might become more clear; He never sought her weakness to reprove With those sharp words which he of God did hear; Yet men will boast of knowledge, which he took From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned book. — Emilia Lanier

Things like taking a few dollars out of a paycheck, putting it into savings, and leaving it there. Or doing a few minutes of exercise every day - and not skipping it. Or reading ten pages of an inspiring, educational, life-changing book every day. Or taking a moment to tell someone how much you appreciate them, and doing that consistently, every day, for months and years. Little things that seem insignificant in the doing, yet when compounded over time yield very big results. You could call these "little virtues" or "success habits." I call them simple daily disciplines. Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. That, in a nutshell, is the slight edge. — Jeff Olson

When I have something to say that I think will be too difficult for adults, I write it in a book for children. Children are excited by new ideas; they have not yet closed the doors and windows of their imaginations. Provided the story is good ... nothing is too difficult for children. — Madeleine L'Engle

The Bible is not just one book, but an entire library, with stories, songs, poetry, letters and history, as well as literature that might more obviously qualify as 'religious.' — John Drane

When I make a book, I make it for the child and not for the parent - no jokes in it for the parents! — Dick Bruna

Great dislike to the Bible was shown by those who conversed with me about it, and several have remarked to me, at different times, that if it were not for that book, Catholics would never be led to renounce their own faith. — Maria Monk

USE COMMON SENSE. If somebody offers you a thousand dollars for this book, chances are their motives are not pure. Then again, a thousand dollars is a lot of money. Take the money and run. — Pseudonymous Bosch

There's only one thing more frightening than being asked to do a book tour, and that's not being asked to do a book tour. — Gerald Petievich

I was heavily influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, C. S. Friedman, Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, R. A. Salvatore, and James Clavell to name a few, but of course every book I've ever read, whether I liked it or not, has had an influence ... I think I am constantly evolving as a writer, but not to mimic anyone else or mainstream trends. — Peter V. Brett

Read what you like, not what you're told to like. That way you'll read for a lifetime. — Carew Papritz

Felicia nodded. "Sometimes I have that problem. I know nearly everything you can learn in a book and very little that you learn in life. Like my fear of spiders. It's silly, really. I've studied arachnids in an effort to get over my ridiculous overreaction, but still, every time I see one ... " She shuddered. "It's not pretty. I simply can't control myself. A flaw - one of many." "If you're not perfect, then you came to the right place," Charlie told her. "Fool's Gold is a lively town with plenty of characters. You'll get a crash course in how the little people live." "I hope I can fit in." Patience saw the concern in Felicia's eyes and touched her arm. "You're going to do just fine. — Susan Mallery

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

If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553). — Richard Baxter

She's a big girl, Syd, and Deke is not an ogre. He doesn't eat little pixies for breakfast and pick his teeth with their bones. — Jenny Lyn

As a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight. — Jose Luis Borges

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years - generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco - and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad - ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice - ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much - ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
— Wilkie Collins

You are holding in your hands not only a book of readings and instruction for the journey, but one monastic's heart of love held out to a searching world. — Paula D'Arcy

A book about courage-a long string of tiny courageous steps. It is also about hope and faith and love. It is modest, careful and joyous. I do not see how any attentive reader could fail to be touched, awed and encouraged." Sara Maitland, Author — Alice Warrender

The approach to the offices of Girdlestone and Co. was not a very dignified one, nor would the uninitiated who traversed it form any conception of the commercial prosperity of the firm in question. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The success that comes from my books is not something I feel very comfortable with. Past a certain point you have to accept the idea that the success is a lot to do with the timing and luck and that divorces you from it massively. There are aspects of it that I haven't got used to at all. But I've enjoyed some parts of it massively. It relates to the same reason I did a lot of backpacking - partly for the experience - it's something to tell my grandkids. It's a weird chain of events to have in your life. — Alex Garland

What fun it is to generalize in the privacy of a note book. It is as I imagine waltzing on ice might be. A great delicious sweep in one direction, taking you your full strength, and then with no trouble at all, an equally delicious sweep in the opposite direction. My note book does not help me think, but it eases my crabbed heart. — Florida Scott-Maxwell

I was one those kids who had books on them. Before weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals and anything else where you're actually meant to not be reading, my family would frisk me and take the book away. If they didn't find it by this point in the procedure, I would be sitting over in that corner completely unnoticed just reading my book. — Neil Gaiman

Then, as in the middle of the bridge, in the middle of a walk, in the middle always, whether of a book, a conversation, or making love, it was borne in on me again that I had never done what I wanted and out of not doing what I wanted to do there grew up inside me this creation which was nothing but an obsessional plant, a sort of coral growth, which was expropriating everything, including life itself, until life itself became this which was denied but which constantly asserted itself, making life and killing life at the same time. — Henry Miller

Unfortunately, there's still a market for rubbish. I picked up a recently written fantasy book at the weekend, and one character said of another: "He will grow wroth." Oh, my God. And the phrase was in a page of similar jaw-breaking, mock-archaic narrative. Belike, i'faith ... this is the language we use to turn high fantasy into third-rate romantic literature. "Yonder lies the palace of my fodder, the king." That's not fantasy - that's just Tolkien reheated until the magic boils away. — Terry Pratchett

Emerson said that a library is a magic chamber in which there are many enchanted spirits. They wake when we call them. When the book lies unopened, it is literally, geometrically, a volume, a thing among things. When we open it, when the book surrenders itself to its reader, the aesthetic event occurs. And even for the same reader the same book changes, for the change; we are the river of Heraclitus, who said that the man of yesterday is not the man of today, who will not be the man of tomorrow. We change incessantly, and each reading of a book, each rereading, each memory of that rereading, reinvents the text. The text too is the changing river of Heraclitus. — Jorge Luis Borges

The NSA is not looking through people's address books and Visa bills and violating the rights of average citizens. That's not what the NSA does. — Michael Gerson

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by. — Mark Twain

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptised. — Lance Armstrong

The chief beauty of this book lies not so much in its literary style, or in the extent and usefulness of the information it conveys, as in its simple truthfulness. — Jerome K. Jerome

Lots of people want to have written; they don't want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning. — Elizabeth George

But seriously Poirot, what a hobby! Compare that to
" his voice sank to an appreciative purr
"an easy chair in front of a wood fire in a long low room lined with books
must be a long room
not a square one. Books all round one. A glass of port
and a book open in your hand. Time rolls back as you read. — Agatha Christie

The mind of the experienced book reader is a calm mind, not a buzzing one. When it comes to the firing of our neurons, it's a mistake to assume that more is better. — Nicholas Carr

Few fallacies are more dangerous or easier to fall into than that by which, having read a given book, we assume that we will continue to know its contents permanently, or having mastered a discipline in the past, we assume that we control it in the present. Philosophically speaking, "to learn" is a verb with not legitimate tense. — Robert Grudin

The most valuable book we can read, about countries we have visited, is that which recalls to us something that we did notice, but did not notice that we noticed. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Scott Adams is not only a world-famous cartoonist, he's also a world-class failure. And he's the first to admit it. In his new book, 'How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,' the Dilbert creator explains how failure can lead to success if you develop the right skills to make the most of your mistakes. — Mark Frauenfelder

For me, marriage should be about partnership. How can you love someone you have to take care of like a child all the time? A wife is supposed to be a partner, and yes partners help each other when they need it, but they are supposed to be together because they want to in my book, not because one needs the other. — Lynsay Sands

A writer is a genius not when critics say so, but when her or his book pierces your heart and rips off your blindness with its brilliance. — Ksenia Anske

What I love about the thriller form is that it makes you write a story. You can't get lost in your own genius, which is a dangerous place for writers. You don't want to ever get complacent. If a book starts going too well, I usually know there's a problem. I need to struggle. I need that self-doubt. I need to think it's not the best thing ever. — Harlan Coben

I soon found an opportunity to be introduced to a famous professor Johann Bernoulli ... True, he was very busy and so refused flatly to give me private lessons; but he gave me much more valuable advice to start reading more difficult mathematical books on my own and to study them as diligently as I could; if I came across some obstacle or difficulty, I was given permission to visit him freely every Sunday afternoon and he kindly explained to me everything I could not understand ... — Leonhard Euler

But any book that is any good must be, to some extent, autobiographical, because one cannot and should not fabricate emotions; and although style and narrative are crucial, the bulwark, emotion, is what finally matters. With luck, talent, and studiousness, one manages to make a little pearl, or egg, or something ... — Edna O'Brien

Be skeptical about this one. It's a great book. But try to be a filter, not a sponge. — Stephen Chbosky

Luckily, what you trade off in not being part of the comic book canon and not having some literature that you can use to your benefit, in terms of figuring out who you are, you gain in the ability to just be whoever you want to be. — Dallas Roberts

He was to be used to record their testaments. He was to be their page, their book, the vessel for their autobiographies. A book of blood. A book made of blood. A book written in blood. She thought of the grimoires that had been made of dead human skin: she'd seen them, touched them. She thought of the tattoos she'd seen: freak show exhibits some of them, others just shirtless laborers in the street with a message to their mothers pricked across their backs. It was not unknown, to write a book of blood. — Clive Barker

Talking about how I might write the next book is like talking about whether or not to have sex. Any dithering ruins it. — Louise Erdrich

This book might also be seen as "a Christian primer." A primer teaches us how to read. Reading is not just about learning to recognize and pronounce words, but also about how to hear and understand them. This book's purpose is to help us to read, hear, and inwardly digest Christian language without preconceived understandings getting in the way. — Marcus J. Borg

With every book I write, I give the Hera Leick Promise. I will never weave into my stories: cheating; sex outside the main characters; sexual abuse; cliffhangars; years of separation; man whores; and lastly my worst pet peeve, insta-love. If one sneaks in, I give you permission to shoot me. Please make note, however, guns are not legal in England. Neither is murder. I hope. — Hera Leick

The thing I'm writing now, I have various characters, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this couple dies. And they have a daughter ... I thought, 'OK, we have to do something with the daughter' ... then I realized she's not really their daughter. She has her own story. And she's become the most interesting character. She was this throwaway character that I didn't even conceive of before I started writing her into it, and now she's become very important in this book. — Sandra Dallas

The mind believes what it sees and does what it believes; that is the
secret of fascination. And in his book, St Augustine does not doubt the
reality of this fascination for one moment. — Antonin Artaud

Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice, but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks
that his works were really the products, not of white Georgia, but of black Georgia. Writing afterward as a white man, he swiftly subsided into the fifth rank. — Joel Chandler Harris

The villagers marked the time in two ways: before the swamp and after. What came before was good. And all that came after was not. — Melanie Crowder

LOVE OF THE GOD"
"Love has power, power of Devine
It fills meaning of one life,
Love is the gift, Gift that gets of fortune,
Rather you aren't going for,
but Some divines put you in.
Without love, Life is like blank book,
Like in darkness one tries to look.
There are some shoulder made for each and Everyone,
To let your self lean and get relax.
But when you are shrugged off by own,
God himself comes and give you calmness.
Be believer of God, he will always with you.
Either anyone loves you or not but he will.
We find gains and such things in sake of Love,
But in his way he always just make you feel better even how wrong or bad you are!
He has his own way to spread love in one life, We should have such a trust and would get that we need to have!!!!
-Samar Sudha — Samar Sudha

Would you not like to fill up a whole note-book at the street crossings when you see a forger borne along upon the necks of six porters, and exposed to view on this side and on that in his almost naked litter, and reminding you of the lounging Maecenas: one who by help of a scrap of paper and a moistened seal has converted himself into a fine and wealthy gentleman? — Juvenal

I looked at the book lying on a table. Though not a great reader myself, I knew that those who were - even Nora - could grow testy when one came between them and their books. — Susan Higginbotham

My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of facts; my book is more like a collection of Ready-mades. — Edward Ruscha

Clary raised her eyebrows at Jace. "You hate bergamot?"
Jace had wandered over to the narrow bookshelf and was examining its contents. "You have a problem with that?"
"You may be the only guy my age I've ever met who knows what bergamot is, much less that it's in Earl Grey tea."
"Yes, well," Jace said, with a supercilious look, "I'm not like other guys. Besides," he added, flipping a book off the shelf, "at the Institute we have to take classes in basic medicinal uses for plants. It's required."
"I figured all your classes were stuff like Slaughter 101 and Beheading for Beginners. — Cassandra Clare

Luther's early position proclaimed that everyone, including "the humble miller's maid, nay, a child of nine," could interpret the Bible. However, as Christianity began to fracture, he radically altered his position. He called the Bible the "heresy book." In 1525 he wrote: "There are as many sects and beliefs as there are heads. This fellow will have nothing to do with baptism; another denies the sacraments; a third believes that there is another world between this and the Last Day. Some teach that Christ is not God; some say this, some say that. There is no rustic so rude but that, if he dreams or fancies anything, it must be the whisper of the Holy Spirit and he himself is a prophet."104 — James M. Seghers

Be strong and of good courage; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded you: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. 9 Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; Do not be terrified, neither be dismayed: for Yahweh your Elohim is with you wherever you go. — Elder Jacob O Meyer

I had a library of maybe 1,000 books in my room in Buenos Aires. I did have the sense that everything there was organised in the right way. You'll probably think I needed serious psychiatric treatment, but there were times when I would not buy a book because I knew it wouldn't fit one of the categories into which I had divided the library. — Alberto Manguel

The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power to promote the general welfare. Surely this is to burn the house to roast the pig ... The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children. — Felix Frankfurter

It's a matter of resisting what something made you feel before. And resisting that as a consumer is not easy. I know it isn't for me, and not just when I consume pop culture. When I go into a book and it feels too familiar, I don't have the energy to do it. My whole reason for reading it is to be in a fictive space that is unfamiliar to me. — Lucy Corin

I thought that deserved a book and feel like the door needs to be open so people can say, "Ok, here we go, let's deal with this" because we're not dealing with it. I'm waiting for somebody to write another book but it hasn't happened yet, though I guess mine's only been out for a year and a half. — Brad Warner

If I had written the greatest book, composed the greatest symphony, painted the most beautiful painting or carved the most exquisite figure I could not have felt the more exalted creator than I did when they placed my child in my arms. — Dorothy Day

The aim of this book is not to make atheism a popular belief or even to overcome its invisibility. My object is not utopian. It is merely to provide good reasons for being an atheist. ... My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is that they should be. — Michael Martin

The Declaration of Independence ... is much more than a political document. It constitutes a spiritual manifesto - revelation, if you will - declaring not for this nation only, but for all nations, the source of man's rights. Nephi, a Book of Mormon prophet, foresaw over 2,300 years ago that this event would transpire. The colonies he saw would break with Great Britain and that 'the power of the Lord was with [the colonists],' that they 'were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations' (1 Nephi 13:16, 19). The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition - the divine right of kings. At issue was the fundamental question of whether men's rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God. — Ezra Taft Benson

The shareholders who own the businesses in this book have other, nonfinancial priorities in addition to their financial objectives. Not that they don't want to earn a good return on their investment, but it's not their only goal, or even necessarily their paramount goal. They're also interested in being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great service to customers, having great relationships with their suppliers, making great contributions to the communities they live and work in, and finding great ways to lead their lives. They've learned, moreover, that to excel in all those things, they have to keep ownership and control inside the company and, in many cases, place significant limits on how much and how fast they grow. The wealth they've created, though substantial, has been a byproduct of success in these other areas. I call them small giants. — Bo Burlingham

IMPORTANT Book reading is a solitary and sedentary pursuit, and those who do are cautioned that a book should be used as an integral part of a well-rounded life, including a daily regimen of rigorous physical exercise, rewarding personal relationships, and sensible low-fat diet. A book should not be used a as a substitute or an excuse. — Garrison Keillor

With that, I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshaling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor - challenging indeed with one shoe - and around the corner. I lay awake for hours. The prince had no right, not one, to indict me so, and if I had held the slightest hope of the book's assistance, I would have climbed at once to my wizard room for a spell with which to punish him. Death, perhaps, or humiliation. A croaking frog would be nice, particularly a frog that retained Florian's dark eyes. I should keep it in a box and poke it occasionally with a stick; that would be satisfying indeed. — Catherine Gilbert Murdock

So she retreated into herself, rebuilt the damaged pathways of her mind, explored long-unvisited memories, wandered among the trillions of human lives that were open to her observation, read over the libraries of every book known to exist in every language human beings had ever spoken. She created out of all this a self that was not utterly linked to Ender Wiggin, though she was still devoted to him, still loved him above any other living soul. Jane made herself into someone who could bear to be cut off from her lover, husband, father, child, brother, friend. — Orson Scott Card

How could anyone not want to live when there were so many things to live for? There were rainy nights and wind and the slap of the sea and the moon. There were books to read and pictures to paint and music. — Michelle Magorian

I'm aware of narrating certain experiences as they happen or obliterating those experiences with narrative and then those stories - not the experiences themselves - might become material for art. This kind of transformation shows up a lot in 10:04 because the book tracks the transposition of fact into fiction in the New Yorker stor — Ben Lerner

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book ... or you take a trip ... and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken. — Anais Nin

As Pliable and Christian find themselves walking together toward the narrow gate, we see the stark contrast between the two pilgrims. One is burdened; the other is not. One is clutching a book that is a light to his path. The other is guideless. One is on the journey in pursuit of deliverance from besetting sins and rest for his soul. The other is on the journey in order to obtain future delights that temporarily dazzle his mind. One is slow and plodding because of his great weight and a sense of his own unrighteousness; the other is light-footed and impatient to obtain all the benefits of Heaven. One is in motion because his soul has been stirred up to both fear and hope; the other is dead to any spiritual fears,
longings, or aspirations. One is seeking God; the other is seeking self-satisfaction. One is a true pilgrim; the other is false and fading.
15. — John Bunyan

I thought to myself, 'why not write a bestseller?' In the first place, more people buy them and more people read them. You make more money and it doesn't take any more time to write a bestseller than it does to write a book nobody buys. — George Burns

We have a generation of kids who may never see a bookshelf or never see books in houses. What are they going to think about books? How will books become meaningful in their lives except as yet another form of digitalized content? A book is not just digitalized content. — Jeanette Winterson

We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just a superficial race - we are a very unfair one. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. 'The Gathering' did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time. — Anne Enright

The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published. The average
or only slightly above average
detective story does ... Whereas the good novel is not at all the same kind of book as the bad novel. It is about entirely different things. But the good detective story and the bad detective story are about exactly the same things, and they are about them in very much the same way. — Raymond Chandler

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning. — Joseph Addison