On Printed Quotes & Sayings

A book is not necessarily made of paper. A book is not necessarily made to be read on a Kindle. A book is a collection of text, organized in one of a variety of ways. You could say that words printed on paper and bound between cloth covers will someday be obsolete. But if and when that day comes, there will still be a thing called books. — James Gleick

I stare up at the huge metal ball hanging from the ceiling, with the words THE SUN printed on it. A tiny ball hangs beside it. THE EARTH. How did I miss those before? One snip of a chain and they would crush us. The sign hanging next to them says, MORE THAN ONE MILLION OF OUR EARTHS WOULD FIT INSIDE THE SUN. I feel very small. — Wendy Mass

The walls were draped with banners covered with cabalistic signs, an abundance of owls of all kinds, scarabs and ibises, and Oriental divinities of uncertain origin. Near the rear wall was a dais, a proscenium of burning torches held up by rough logs, and in the background an altar with a triangular altarpiece and statuettes of Isis and Osiris. The room was ringed by an amphitheater of figures of Anubis, and there was a portrait of Cagliostro (it could hardly have been of anyone else, could it?), a gilded mummy in Cheops format, two five-armed candelabra, a gong suspended from two rampant snakes, on a podium a lectern covered by calico printed with hieroglyphics, and two crowns, two tripods, a little portable sarcophagus, a throne, a fake seventeenth-century fauteuil, four unmatched chairs suitable for a banquet with the sheriff of Nottingham, and candles, tapers, votive lights, all flickering very spiritually. — Umberto Eco

A morning breeze blew through the campus of Prufrock Preparatory School, rustling the brown lawn and knocking against the stone arch with the motto printed on it.
"Memento Mori"-"Remember you will die." The Baudelaire orphans looked up at the motto and vowed that before they died, they would solve this dark and complicated mystery that cast a shadow over their lives. — Lemony Snicket

I finished polishing the clock and picked up one of the figurines next to it. It was in the shape of an angel and on the angel's gown were printed the words: ALMIGHTY GOD, GIVE US SERENITY TO ACCEPT WHAT CANNOT BE CHANGED, COURAGE TO CHANGE WHAT SHOULD BE CHANGED, AND WISDOM TO KNOW THE ONE FROM THE OTHER. What if you couldn't do that? Couldn't change things and couldn't accept them, either? I took hold of the angel's head and snapped it off. And then I snapped one wing off, and then the other. I broke his arms off, too, and then I asked him how serene he was feeling now — Jennifer Donnelly

In 2056, I think you'll be able to buy T-shirts on which are printed equations describing the unified laws of our universe. — Max Tegmark

I'd wander for days in the fog, scared I'd never see another thing, then there'd be that door, opening to show me the mattress padding on the other side to stop out the sounds, the men standing in a line like zombies among shiny copper wires and tubes pulsing light, and the bright scrape of arcing electricity. I'd take my place in the line and wait my turn at the table. The table shaped like a cross, with shadows of a thousand murdered men printed on it, silhouette wrists and ankles running under leather straps sweated green with use, a silhouette neck and head running up to a silver band goes across the forehead. And a technician at the controls beside the table looking up from his dial and down the line and pointing at me with a rubber glove. — Ken Kesey

It was a pity that most people didn't actually go to libraries anymore, not when they could sit in the comfort of their own quarters and access files electronically. Want to read the new hot interstellar caper novel, or the latest issue of Beings holozine? Input the name, touch a control, and zip - it's in your datapad. . . .
There were, of course, old-fashioned beings who would still actually trundle down to where the files were. On some worlds the most ancient libraries kept books - actual bound volumes of printed matter - lined up neatly on shelves, and readers would walk the aisles, take a volume down, sniff the musty-dusty odor of it, and then carry it to a table to leisurely peruse.
There weren't many of those readers left, and they were growing rarer all the time . . . But there were some who still knew how to actually turn a page - and for those who were willing to do so, the rewards could be great indeed. — Michael Reaves And Steve Perry

We should call on the Creator to show more modesty. He created the world in a frenzy of excitement. Instead of revising his rough drafts, he had his work printed straightaway. What a lot of contradictions there are in it. What a log of typing errors, inconsistencies in the plot, passages that are too long and wordy, characters that are entirely superfluous. But it is painful and difficult to cut and trim the living cloth of a book written and published in too much of a hurry — Vasily Grossman

It was a stamp. It was a yellowy-green color. It showed - Moist peered - a field of cabbages, with some buildings on the horizon. He sniffed. It smelled of cabbages. Oh, yes. "Printed with cabbage ink and using gum made from broccoli, sir," said Stanley, full of pride. "'A Salute to the Cabbage Industry of the Sto Plains,' sir. I think it might do very well. Cabbages are so popular, sir. You can make so many things out of them!" "Well, I can see that - " "There's cabbage soup, cabbage beer, cabbage fudge, cabbage cake, cream of cabbage - " "Yes, Stanley, I think you - " " - pickled cabbage, cabbage jelly, cabbage salad, boiled cabbage, deep-fried cabbage - " "Yes, but now can - " " - fricassee of cabbage, cabbage chutney, cabbage Surprise, sausages - " "Sausages?" "Filled with cabbage, sir. You can make practically anything with cabbage, sir. Then there's - " "Cabbage stamps," said Moist terminally. — Terry Pratchett

So many things seemed to come in plastic bags now that it was difficult to keep track of them. The main thing was not to throw it away carelessly, better still to put it away in a safe place, because there was a note printed on it which read 'To avoid danger of suffocation keep this wrapper away from babies and children'. They could have said from middle-aged and elderly persons too, who might well have an irresistible urge to suffocate themselves. — Barbara Pym

She falls back like a dead weight. The red hair loosens from the hair band and spreads in the colorful surface of the pillows, her white body is in sharp contrast, the gleam in her bloodshot eyes becomes intense and shines. My aunt, lying like this, looks like a goddess in an orgasm, only that, inside, she is suffering. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. The same is happening to us, we're really disappearing. I think of the matter of our bodies, changeable, disappearing in the particles of the air while we breathe. In this room, everywhere, we are printed on the walls, in the air that settles on things. I breathe and look at her. I'm stuck in her. — Pat R

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

He wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Congressional investigations ... are still being held on the problem of unidentified flying objects and the problem is one in which there is quite a bit of interest ... Since most of the material presented to the committee is classified, the hearings are never printed. — William Hanes Ayres

That evening, Hope wrote a letter to her MP, Jack Crow. She found no difficulty at all in composing it, but quite a bit in writing it. She hadn't hand-written an entire page since primary school. In the end she found an app on her glasses that sampled her handwriting and turned it into a font that looked like her handwriting would if it had been regular, and printed it off. There was even an app for the printer that indented the paper a little, and an ink that looked like ballpoint ink. — Ken MacLeod

I've been writing since I was very young, even before I was a teenager. As far as I'm concerned, I am a writer - whether my writing's spoken or written in a blog, paper, book or printed on the side of a submarine. — Dylan Moran

To you, it's a book to read - a nicely printed stack of paper with a beautiful cover. To me, it's a living, breathing thing that I have invested my heart and soul in. It's much more than a stack of paper to me. It's my imagination - come alive in your hand. — Jason P. Stadtlander

Like a word on a page that you've printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you've lost something, even if you're not sure what it is. — Sarah Dessen

Only a determined and resourceful scholar could establish manuscript precedence - but in the race to masturbate on a printed page Proust definitely came first. — Michael Foley

[ ... ]he also had a device which looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million "pages" could be summoned at a moment's notice. It looked
insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words
Don't Panic printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact that most
remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitch hiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in. — Douglas Adams

An unread book does nobody any good. Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page. — Brandon Mull

A century from now," he murmured as he lifted a page and examined it against the light, closing one eye, "almost all the contents of today's libraries will have disappeared. But these books, printed two hundred or even five hundred years ago, will remain intact. We have the books, and the world, that we deserve. . . . Isn't that so, Pablo?" "Lousy books printed on lousy paper. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

Though I enjoy the occasional eBook from time to time, I will only stop reading books printed on paper when they pry them from my cold, dead, withered hands, and even then, they will be hard pressed to take them from me. — H.L. Stephens

I do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them when I should be about the king's business. — Isaac Newton

You live for those really great scenes where you almost feel that the film has gone beyond what was printed on the script pages and been raised to another level. — Tobey Maguire

[Photography] can be tiny, on your phone, or it can be a billboard, or a film-sized projection, or printed in a magazine. I don't think we've been in a time before when so much photography is available in so many formats, when everybody is a photographer. — Christian Marclay

I would resurrect that person in words, and once the pages had been printed and the story had been bound between covers, they would have something to hold on to for the rest of their lives. Not only that, but something that would outlive them, that would outlive us all.
One should never underestimate the power of books. — Paul Auster

number printed on the letterhead. She asked the — Lori L. Robinett

I am not a bed-and breakfast person. I understand why other people would want to stay in B&Bs. They're pretty. They're personal. They're "quaint," a polite way of saying "no TV." They are "romantic," i.e., every object large enough for a flower to be printed on it is going to have a flower printed on it. They're "cozy," meaning that a guest has to keep her belongings on the floor because every conceivable flat surface is covered in knickknacks, except for the one knickknack she longs for, a remote control. — Sarah Vowell

I push a clump of very wet hair out of my face and try to look dignified. It's not like it really matters in the long run, considering I'm in the presence of a boy who is wearing a T-shirt with a dinosaur riding a tricycle screen printed on it. I think that says a lot. — Mara Dabrishus

When I look at our roster, I'm sure all of you have printed that I'm coming up on 35, and given my situation and my salary structure and all that, yeah, I have to wonder if this team is going to make moves and they haven't. — Antonio Davis

If you chance to live and move and have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make the news transpire,
thinnerthan the paper on which it is printed,
then these things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or dive below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. — Henry David Thoreau

Forty of Paracelsus's theological manuscripts still survive, as well as sixteen Bible commentaries, twenty sermons, twenty works on the Eucharist, and seven on the Virgin Mary. Half of these have never been properly edited, let alone printed in modern form. There is no question that Paracelsus thought long and hard about Christianity, and by styling himself a professor of theology (without, it seems, any official academic sanction) he implies that he regarded this component of his output to be the equal of his medical and chemical theories. That his role in the history of science and medicine has received far more attention than his theological oeuvre is, however, understandable and probably apt, for it cannot be said that he had much influence even on the religious debates of his day. In theology he never aspired to be a Luther, and that would in any case have been a futile aspiration for one so lacking in political acumen or the ability to foster disciples. — Philip Ball

The week passed by swiftly, like a dream ... a dream where minutes flew as rapidly as heartbeats. Such a breathless week when something within her drove Scarlett with mingled pain and pleasure to pack and cram every minute with incidents to remember after he was gone, happenings which she could examine at leisure in the long months ahead, extracting every morsel of comfort from them - dance, sing, laugh, fetch and carry for Ashley, anticipate his wants, smile when he smiles, be silent when he talks, follow him with your eyes so that each line of his erect body, each lift of his eyebrows, each quirk of his mouth, will be indelibly printed on your mind - for a week goes by so fast and the war goes on forever. — Margaret Mitchell

I admit that I am hopelessly hooked on the printed newspaper. I love turning the pages and the serendipity of stumbling across a piece of irresistible information or a photograph that I wasn't necessarily intending to read. — Jill Abramson

Inside his copy of The Social Contract he keeps a letter from a young Picard, an enthusiast called Antoine Saint-Just: "I know you, Robespierre, as I know God, by your works."
When he suffers, as he does increasingly, from a distressing tightness of the chest and shortness of breath, and when his eyes seem too tired to focus on the printed page, the thought of the letter urges the weak flesh to more Works. — Hilary Mantel

The tight link that Protestants perceive between Scripture and salvation explains the great energy they have poured into studying, distributing, and translating the Scriptures, as well as producing the never-ending deluge of printed material explaining, mediating, parsing, debating, exploring, and riffing on the Bible. — Mark A. Noll

Bastian looked at the book.
'I wonder,' he said to himself, 'what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures, deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.'
Suddenly an almost festive mood came over him.
He settled himself down, picked up the book, opened it to the first page, and began to read ... — Michael Ende

I was looking at a bottle of water; they have nutritional facts printed on the side. You know, I'm no chemist, but I have a rough idea what's in water. — Jim Gaffigan

It is not uncommon in the modern world for people to retreat into the world of books to escape from the realities of the outside world. The printed word evokes the modern notion of security, with the emphasis on detachment, privacy, autonomy, predictability, and enclosed artificiality. — Jeremy Rifkin

I work on a political subject quite often, and the paintings, for me, are not finished until they're printed. — Erro

Most of those characters with all the answers couldn't poor piss out of a rubber boot if they read the instructions printed on the sole. — Guy Vanderhaeghe

I begin with understanding the intentions of the story. That helps me to zero in. Then I gather research for each individual character and analyze the time period with comparisons to the figure and the facial structure. It helps to be comfortable with computers because the massive amount of research is kept electronically and shared with my staff this way. Very little is printed out. I work with an illustrator to come up with the proper silhouettes and details of the clothing from the time period to time period. And on and on. — Ruth E. Carter

Even a paperback printed on acidic paper, whose pages have yellowed ten years on, can still be read, no matter how badly the spine is cracked or how inflated it's become from being dropped in the bathtub. The pages might separate from the spine, but a rubber band can keep them together. You may loan a book to your circle of closest friends, but shoes are another matter. A great book will never go out of style - books go with every outfit. — Lewis Buzbee

Business cards, of course, are not proof of anything. Anyone can go to a print shop and have cards made that say anything they like. The king of Denmark can order business cards that say he sells golf balls. Your dentist can order business cards that say she is your grandmother. In order to escape from the castle of an enemy of mine, I once had cards printed that said I was an admiral in the French navy. Just because something is typed - whether it is typed on a business card or typed in a newspaper or book - this does not mean it is true. — Lemony Snicket

I bring a copy of 'Dracula' with me wherever I go, the book. It's my favorite book in the world, it's absolutely incredible. My great-great grandfather was the guy who printed the first edition, so he's the first person to ever put 'Dracula' on the written page. — Jack Reynor

The door partly opens, and Deacon rests his hip on the frame and looks me up and down as if he has no idea who I am. He's wearing gray sweatpants with CORVALLIS UNION HIGH SCHOOL printed up the leg, his hair all askew. He's shirtless, whether for effect or for comfort I'm not sure. — Suzanne Young

Generally, writers descend from a lesser tribe, and whatever claim to beauty we have shows up on the printed page far more often than it does in our mirrors. Even as I writer these words I think of dozens off writers, both male and female, who make a mockery of this generalization. But comeliness among writers is rare enough to be noteworthy. — Pat Conroy

I WILL NOT TRUST IN RICHES Wealth has some pretty powerful side effects. If wealth were an over-the-counter medicine, there would be bold warnings printed on the packaging. Warning: May cause arrogance. While taking this medicine, extra precaution should be taken not to offend people. If taken for prolonged periods, may impair perception, causing hope to migrate. If you saw a commercial for wealth on TV, it would show pictures of happy people holding hands in the park. Meanwhile, the announcer would be listing all the ways it can ruin your kidneys, rot your stomach, cause sudden heart failure, and destroy your life. — Andy Stanley

This isn't a religious book though I mention God, not a medical advisory though I speak of pain. It's a circus, a mortuary, a grade school, a limousine ride. Will it be worth the paper it's printed on or the screen you hold in your hand? I just hope you remember it next week. — Chila Woychik

Badly drawn, badly written and badly printed - a strain on young eyes and young nervous systems - the effect of these pulp-paper nightmares is that of a violent stimulant. Their crude blacks and reds spoil the child's natural sense of color; their hypodermic injection of sex and murder makes the child impatient with better, though quieter, stories. Unless we want a coming generation even more ferocious than the present one, parents and teachers throughout America must band together to break the 'comic' magazines.

But the antidote to the 'comic' magazine poison can be found in any library or good bookstore. The parent who does not acquire that antidote for his child is guilty of criminal negligence. — Sterling North

Bhagat Singh revered Lajpat Rai as a leader. But he would not spare even Lajpat Rai, when, during the last years of his life, Lajpat Rai turned to communal politics. He then launched a political-ideological campaign against him. Because Lajpat Rai was a respected leader, he would not publicly use harsh words of criticism against him. And so he printed as a pamphlet Robert Browning's famous poem, 'The Lost Leader,' in which Browning criticizes Wordsworth for turning against liberty. The poem begins with the line 'Just for a handful of silver he left us.' A few more of the poem's lines were:
'We shall march prospering, not thro' his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre,' and
'Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more.'

There was not one word of criticism of Lajpat Rai. Only, on the front cover, he printed Lajpat Rai's photograph! — Bipan Chandra

Themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Recall that when the first presses produced copies of the Bible, the scribes who had to spend years at a time on the same work, just as it had been done for centuries, streamed out from the monasteries with quills raised in the air, decrying the work of the devil. When one of the pioneering tradesmen printed certain words in red ink to emphasize them, it was proof that he had used his own blood. That was why the printers' assistants began to be called "devils." Soon printers were threatened with burning, and some were indeed put into the fire along with their equipment. From the beginning, the creation of the modern book was viewed as the work of Satan - an attempt to usurp the word of God. — Matthew Pearl

The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Biblewhich every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed, and which America reads. So wide is its influence. — Henry David Thoreau

After all, how many of us had tried to forget something traumatic ... only to find it printed on the back of our eyelids, tattooed on our tongues? — Jodi Picoult

In former times great objects were attained by great work. When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their heavy task with grave decorum and laborious argument. An age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to write, and an eternity to read. We get on now with a lighter step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows, — Anthony Trollope

I worked on scores. I went to the musical library in Berlin which is very famous. I discovered that we had scores of Beethoven, printed scores of Beethoven, that are full of mistakes. Not the wrong or false notes, but the wrong dynamic, understandable things. — Kurt Masur

She was bad at love. There were people in the world who were good at love and people who were bad at it. She was bad. She used to think she was good at love, that it was intimacy she was bad at. But you had to have both. Love without intimacy, she knew, was an unsung tune. It was all in your head. You said, "Listen to this!" but what you found yourself singing was a tangle, a nothing, a heap. It reminded her of a dinner party she had gone to once, where dessert was served on plates printed with French songs. After dinner everyone had had to sing their plate, but hers had still had whipped cream on it, and when it came her turn, she had garbled the notes and words, frantically pushing the whipped cream around with a fork so she could see the next measure. Oh, she was bad, bad like that, at love. — Lorrie Moore

More than nine-tenths of all literate men and women certainly read nothing but newspapers, and consequently model their orthography, grammar and style almost exclusively on them and even, in their simplicity, regard the murdering of language which goes on in them as brevity of expression, elegant facility and ingenious innovation; indeed, young people of the unlearned professions in general regard the newspaper as an authority simply because it is something printed. For this reason, the state should, in all seriousness, take measures to ensure that the newspapers are altogether free of linguistic errors. A — Arthur Schopenhauer

You have an incredible body. He reaches out to touch my stomach. I feel no pleasure in his compliment or his touch, only impatience. This is the only feeling. I feel like the paper on which my mood chart is printed. — Augusten Burroughs

Come on, Ella. Sleep green.'
Ignoring him, I got into bed wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts printed with penguins. I reached over to the nightstand and flipped off the lamp.
A moment of silence, and then I heard a lecherous murmur. 'I like your penguins. — Lisa Kleypas

EVERY FEW WEEKS AND SOMETIMES MORE OFTEN THAN THAT, the Benzes would receive in the postbox affixed to the wall outside their front door a notice printed on a half-size sheet of white paper, bordered in a bold black line. They were death announcements. Ein Bestattungsanzeige. The postman delivered them along with the mail whenever a Dietlikon resident died. It was a small-town courtesy, not a typical Swiss practice. — Jill Alexander Essbaum

I think a lot of people overlook the importance of the menu as a marketing tool and a way of communicating to the customer what the ambition of their restaurant is. Not only the typeface and the design, but what is it printed on? Is it cheap-looking? Is it the right kind of paper for that restaurant? — Joe Bastianich

In the railroads, some people read clearly printed departure signs and then proceed to ask several times what they say. On airplanes, they demand things they know they cannot have. In their cars, they load up, drive away and then suddenly realize they don't know where they're going. — Lucinda Franks

Whenever I go to Germany I find that my readers have T-shirts with my book covers printed on them. They come to all the events, they have gifts and they come with their families. They are always very open to sharing their personal stories. — Cecelia Ahern

The more I learn, the more I am convinced that there are no original stories. On several occasions I have "invented" an incident, and then come across it in an obscure fragment of Hebridean lore, orally collected, and privately printed, a hundred years ago. — Alan Garner

One time, I noticed that the little waxy strips you peel off the maxi pad adhesive were printed, over and over, with a slogan: 'Kotex Understands.' In the worst moments, when my period felt like a death - the death of innocence, the death of safety, the harbinger of a world where I was too fat, too weird, too childish, too ungainly - I'd sit hunched over on the toilet and stare at that slogan, and I'd cry. Kotex understands. Somebody, somewhere, understands. — Lindy West

Beneath the clock was an enormous arrow, on which was printed: Change Here For Eastern Trains. But time had no arrow, not here. — Martin Amis

The next time you see a 16-color, blind-embossed, gold-stamped, die-cut, elaborately folded and bound job, printed on handmade paper, see if it isn't a mediocre idea trying to pass for something else. — Milton Glaser

Printed works do not take up mental space simply by virtue of being there; attention must be paid or their content, whether simple or complex, can never be truly assimilated. The willed attention demanded by print is the antithesis of the reflexive distraction encouraged by infotainment media, whether one is talking about the tunes on an iPod, a picture flashing briefly on a home page, a text message, a video game, or the latest offering of "reality" TV. That all of these sources of information and entertainment are capable of simultaneously engendering distraction and absorption accounts for much of their snakelike charm. — Susan Jacoby

It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they come from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them
with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them ... — Eudora Welty

In 1922 everything changed again. The Eskimo pie was invented; James Joyce's Ulysses was printed in Paris; snow fell on Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Babe Ruth signed a three-year contract with the New York Yankees; Eugene O'Neill was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Frederick Douglass's home was dedicated as a national shrine; former heavyweight champion of the world Jack Johnson invented the wrench ... — Bernice L. McFadden

They were growing up in the golden age of comic books. Comic strips, or "funnies," had begun appearing in the pages of newspapers in the 1890s. But comic books date only to the 1930s. They'd been more or less invented by Maxwell Charles Gaines (everyone called him Charlie), a former elementary school principal who was working as a salesman for the Eastern Color Printing Company, in Waterbury, Connecticut, when he got the idea that the pages of funnies that appeared in the Sunday papers could be printed cheaply, stapled together, and sold as magazines, or "comic books." In 1933, Gaines started selling the first comic book on newsstands; it was called Funnies on Parade. — Jill Lepore

My Lamb, you are so very small, You have not learned to read at all; Yet never a printed book withstands The urgence of your dimpled hands. So, though this book is for yourself, Let mother keep it on the shelf Till you can read. O days that pass, That day will come too soon, alas! — E. Nesbit

I lifted my Bible in one hand and with my other scooped up all the papers on my adoption. Both hands held paper that contained words printed in black and white ink. Both contained facts. Yet only one held the truth. I had to choose which of these documents I would entrust with my life. — Christine Caine

America is the only country ever founded on the printed word. — Marshall McLuhan

There's a jean for everyone. And I'm a fan of that. I love a jean, and I love all these spins on them. I love a printed Balmain jean, or a Givenchy, and I love the prints, I love that you can have so much fun with it all, you know, dressing up. — Liberty Ross

I remember once, when I lived in the Capital for a month and bought the paper fresh each day, I went wild with love, anger, irritation, frustration; all of the passions boiled in me. I was young. I exploded at everything I saw. But then I saw what I was doing: I was believing what I read. Have you noticed? You believe a paper printed on the very day you buy it? This has happened but only an hour ago, you think! It must be true.' He shook his head. 'So I learned to stand back away and let the paper age and mellow. Back here, in Colonia, I saw the headlines diminish to nothing. The week-old paper - why, you can spit on it if you wish. It is like a woman you once loved, but you now see, a few days later, she is not quite what you thought. She has rather a plain face. She is no deeper than a cup of water. — Ray Bradbury

The Harvard researchers wrote.24 In 1985, Car and Driver magazine printed an issue with the cover line "Hell Freezes Over," announcing NUMMI's accomplishments. The worst auto factory on earth had become one of the most productive plants in existence, using the same workers as before. Then, — Charles Duhigg

People rely on Wikipedia, and a lot of it is wrong. But because there it is on the Internet, they assume it's right. Rumor gets printed as fact. We may have lost our critical facility as a nation. — Ben Mezrich

I made a decision a long time ago that I was going to choose joy. I even painted a big rectangle on my wall and printed it in big letters so I wouldn't forget to make that choice every day. The major word in that rectangle isn't joy, it's CHOOSE. It's looking around me when life is difficult and trading every complaint I have for something beautiful in my life that far outweighs it. I know, it's that Pollyanna personified thing again, but living joyful beats being cynical any day of the week. — Jessica N. Turner

On the delivery plate of the Nutri-Matic Drink Synthesizer was a small tray, on which say three bone china cups and saucers, a bone china jug of milk, a silver teapot full of the best tea Arthur had ever tasted and a small printed note saying Wait. — Douglas Adams

Lowell's cubicle at the office was slightly larger than a toilet stall, but no higher, and although the door said MANAGING EDITOR, Lowell always felt that the words had been printed there in the same spirit that moves service-station operators to paint KING on the door of the men's privy — L.J. Davis

The play is independent of the pages on which it is printed, and 'pure geometries' are independent of lecture rooms, or of any other detail of the physical world. — G.H. Hardy

Amedeo loved thick tomes, and in tackling them he felt the physical pleasure of undertaking a great task. Weighing them in his hand, thick, closely printed, squat, he would consider with some apprehension the number of pages, the length of the chapters, then venture into them, a bit reluctant at the beginning, without any desire to perform the initial chore of remembering the names, catching the drift of the story; then he would entrust himself to it, running along the lines, crossing the grid of the uniform page, and beyond the leaden print the flame and fire of battle appeared, the cannonball that, whistling through the sky, fell at the feet of Prince Andrei, and the shop filled with engravings and statues where Frederic Moreau, his heart in his mouth, was to meet the Arnoux family. Beyond the surface of the page you entered a world where life was more alive than here on this side ... — Italo Calvino

A true thing about seeds is that they don't always stay seeds. In addition, most seeds grow up to be something. Some become plants or trees that then go about producing more seeds. Some seeds get popped and eaten and ... well, you probably have a pretty good idea of what happens to things after they get eaten.
Some seeds are dried, some are pressed for oil, and some simply end up in bean bags or as the rattle in a baby's toy. It's probably fair to say that the life and times of a seed isn't necessarily the most exciting thing in the world, but what the seed lacks in excitement, it makes up for in miracles.
It's a miracle that a tiny seed can change from a dot in your palm into a towering tree whose wood can be made into the home you live in or the paper books are printed on. — Obert Skye

These days, digitization enables us to view the copies [of the Gutenberg Bible] online without the need for a trip to the Euston Road, although to do so would be to deny oneself one of the great pleasures in life. The first book ever printed in Europe - heavy, luxurious, pungent and creaky - does not read particularly well on an iPhone. — Simon Garfield

To see takes time, like having a friend takes time. It is as simple as turning off the television to learn the song of a single bird. Why should anyone do such things? I cannot imagine - unless one is weary of crossing days off the calendar with no sense of what makes the last day different from the next. Unless one is weary of acting in what feels more like a television commercial than a life. The practice of paying attention offers no quick fix for such weariness, with guaranteed results printed on the side. Instead, it is one way into a different way of life, full of treasure for those who are willing to pay attention to exactly where they are. — Barbara Brown Taylor

I like to flip through play scripts, not just my own; there is something exciting about seeing printed language on a page that triggers responses in me. — Donald Margulies

The Affordable Health Care for Americans Act, passed by the House of Representatives on November 7, 2009, was 1,990 pages long. You could stand on it to paint the ceiling. The entire U.S. Constitution can be printed on eight pages. That's eight pages to run a whole country for 221 years versus four reams of government pig latin if you slam your thumb in a car door. — P. J. O'Rourke

The reader must come armed , in a serious state of intellectual readiness. This is not easy because he comes to the text alone. In reading, one's responses are isolated, one'sintellect thrown back on its own resourses. To be confronted by the cold abstractions of printed sentences is to look upon language bare, without the assistance of either beauty or community. Thus, reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity. — Neil Postman

At the base of her ankle is a deep, ugly scar she got when a car ran over her foot when she was six years old. That was in a small town in Bangladesh. Thus, even today, she hesitates superstitiously before crossing the road, and is painfully shy of walking distances. Her fears make her laughable. The scar is printed on her skin like a radiant star. — Amit Chaudhuri

( ... ) perfectly ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did the more dangerous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the reader's brain. — Terry Pratchett

The sky has stopped
offering you reasons to live and your heart is the rock
you threw through each window
of what's deserted you, so you turn
to the burnt out building inside you: the scaffolding
overhead, the fallen beams,
the unsound framework;


according to the blue that's printed on the inside of your arms
you have no plans, no plans
uncovered, or uncovering: the offing is emptying,


the horizon empty


now that your sanity is
a tarp or a bedsheet
in the rough hands of the wind,


now that everything is hooded
in drop cloth.


It didn't happen
overnight. Or maybe it did:


your heart, the rock;
your soul, the Gothic barn. — Olena Kalytiak Davis

What can you say about Guy's cooking that hasn't been printed on a packet of cigarettes? — Willie Geist

Of course it is impossible, or at any rate very difficult, properly to study anything whatever without the aid of printed books. But if you desire to understand the deeper depths of bridge or of boat-sailing you would not be deterred by your lack of interest in literature from reading the best books on bridge or boat-sailing. We must, therefore, distinguish between literature, and books treating of subjects not literary. — Arnold Bennett

Despite its veneer of impartial scholarship, Butz's book is replete with the same expressions of traditional anti-Semitism, philo-Germanism and conspiracy theory as the Holocaust denial pamphlets printed by the most scurrilous neo-Nazi groups.

-- Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, page 126 — Deborah E. Lipstadt

You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.
— Merce Cunningham