Picking Books Quotes & Sayings

I have a bad habit of picking up books about drugs, but that's better than having a drug habit, I think. — Andrew VanWyngarden

The endless piles of genre fiction are the key to happiness. They're the key to picking out the things that actually make you happy in this world instead of the things that you're told are good for you. Ninety percent of everything you read is going to be crap one way or the other, so make sure it's the crap that makes you smile, and don't apologize for it. — Steven Lloyd Wilson

The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Witchcraft isn't about picking up a book, and asking forgiveness.. or learning about spirituality through the words of others. What you learn from those books are the opinions of other people, and not your own. If this is what you believe then you are not an individual. Witchcraft is about accepting that YOU are responsible for the choices that YOU have made, and YOU teaching YOURSELF to make the right choices. Its about learning through YOUR OWN opinions, YOUR OWN life lessons, YOUR OWN inner self, and by doing so.. BECOME an individual. — Carla VanKoughnett

To be a judge you don't have to know about books, you have to be skilled at picking shrapnel out of your head. — Joanna Lumley

Well, now that we've knocked over one another's books, isn't the next step for our hands to accidentally touch while we're picking them up? — Lauren Kate

..all of us who are sealed to the Library are people who have chosen this way of life because we love books. None of us wanted to save worlds. I mean, not that we object to saving worlds..." She shrugged, picking up her teacup again "We want books. We love books. We live with books. — Genevieve Cogman

With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. — Robert H. Jackson

Do you know about lock picking?"
"I'm sure it's like sex."
"I'm sure it's not like sex."
"How would you know? Everything's like sex. It's the universal metaphor. To pick a lock, let me guess, you have to go slow at first, but then you have to pull off some fancy moves, and you have to stay concentrated, and you have to stick something in something, right? — Ned Vizzini

I like books that aren't just lovely but that have memories in themselves. Just like playing a song, picking up a book again that has memories can take you back to another place or another time.
Emmma Watson, about reading — Emma Watson

I believe in the absolute and unlimited liberty of reading. I believe in wandering through the stacks and picking out the first thing that strikes me. I believe in choosing books based on the dust jacket. I believe in reading books because others dislike them or find them dangerous. I believe in choosing the hardest book imaginable. I believe in reading up on what others have to say about this difficult book and then making up my own mind. - Rick Moody — Jay Allison

I had a friend who was the King's surgeon in England. One day I asked him what makes a great surgeon. He replied, "What distinguishes a great surgeon is his knowledge. He knows more than other surgeons. During an operation he finds something which he wasn't expecting, recognizes it and knows what to do about it." It's the same thing with advertising people. The good ones know more. How do you get to know more? By reading books about advertising. By picking the brains of people who know more than you do. From the Magic Lanterns. And from experience. — David Ogilvy

Sometimes people ask why I'm so willing to give out #free copies of my books and the answer is pretty simple. Money is not why I write.So why would I keep someone from enjoying that because they can't afford my book? If your in the arts for money your picking the wrong job. — Adam Snowflake

Make a new friend by picking up a book and getting to know it! — Carmela Dutra

Names are hard. I have a library of What to Name Your Baby books, and I'm always picking up new books, and books of baby names from other countries. I like cool-sounding names. — George R R Martin

I read daily, not so much for the benefit of my writing, but because I am addicted to it. There is nothing in the world for me that compares to being lost in a really good novel. That said, reading is an absolute must if you want to write. It is a trite enough thing to say, but very true nonetheless. I cannot understand aspiring writers who email me for advice and freely admit that they read very little. I have learned something from every writer I have ever read. Sometimes I have done so consciously, picking up something about how to frame a scene, or seeing a new possibility with regards to structure, or interesting ways to write dialogue. Other times, I think, my collective reading experience affects my sensibilities and informs me in ways that I am not quite aware of, but in real ways that impact how I approach writing. The short of it is, as an aspiring writer, there is nothing as damaging to your credibility as saying that you don't like to read — Khaled Hosseini

There is something unique about the size, and shape, and feel of a real physical book, and there is a real discovery about running your eye along a line of books and picking one out because it somehow LOOKS right. — Alexei Panshin

A lot of my books deal with very controversial issues that most people often don't want to talk about, issues that, in my country, are more likely to get put under the carpet than get discussed. And when you talk about moral conundrums, about shades of gray, what you're doing is asking the people who want the world to be black and white to realize instead that maybe it's all right if it isn't. I know you'll learn something picking up my books, but my goal as a writer is not to teach you but to make you ask more questions. — Steven Tyler

Reading is first and foremost non-reading. Even in the case of the most passionate lifelong readers, the act of picking up and opening a book masks the countergesture that occurs at the same time: the involuntary act of *not* picking up and *not* opening all the other books in the universe. — Pierre Bayard

Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose. — Neil Gaiman

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don't read a book out of its right time for you. — Doris Lessing

Dave put a lot of thought into picking out the books his dad would like least. — Theric Jepson

I recently discovered that a friend who was re-reading Bleak House had done no other Dickens apart from Barnaby Ridge. That's just weird. I shamed and nagged him into picking up Great Expectations instead. But when I tried to recall anything about it other than its excellence, I failed. Maybe there was something about a peculiar stepfather? Or was that This Boy's Life? And I realized that, as this is true of just about every book I consumed between the ages of, say fifteen to forty, I havent even read the books I think I've read. I can't tell you how depressing this is. What's the fucking point? — Nick Hornby

I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one ... In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money ... the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it. — James Clavell

I hate picking favourite books. I usually tend to stay away from all the 'top record' and 'favourite song' and 'favourite book', and I just think it doesn't do any good for anybody. — Regina Spektor

Books were her refuge. Having set herself to learn the Russian language, she read every Russian book she could find. But French was the language she preferred, and she read French books indiscriminately, picking up whatever her ladies-in-waiting happened to be reading. She always kept a book in her room and carried another in her pocket. — Robert K. Massie

There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life. — Laura Lippman

People often ask if my books should be read in any particular order, but they're all standalone novels, so picking up any one of them would be fine. — Jennifer McMahon

Libraries are where most of us really fall in love with books, where we can browse and choose on our own. Its really one of the first autonomous things we do, picking the books we want to read. — Kim Boykin

Publishing is no longer simply a matter of picking worthy manuscripts and putting them on offer. It is now as important to market books properly, to work with the bookstore chains to getterms, co-op advertising, and the like. The difficulty is that publishers who can market are most often not the publishers with worthy lists. — Olivia Goldsmith

Has spending more time with her stopped you thinking she's perfect?" I asked.
Pico smiled. "No. She's perfect. But I do understand her better. She's the perfect Athene, and that includes a certain amount of pride and vanity and temper."
"But surely - you know I'm not perfect!"
"But you are," he said, picking out the books and piling them on the bed. "You are the perfect Apollo. You're the light. And both of you grow and change and become more excellent, while remaining perfect as you are. Perfection isn't static. It's a dynamic form. — Jo Walton