Readers And Classic Books Quotes & Sayings

Have patience. Wait until the mud settles and the water is clear. Remain unmoving until right action arises by itself. — Laozi

Perhaps a book becomes a classic in proportion to how broadly its characters can be scavenged, how many readers find within it something they experience as desirable or even intimately necessary. — Janna Malamud Smith

There stood Dan alone, with a ninja mask pulled over his face. Fifteen hissing bottle rockets were pointed right them.
"Screaming bottle of death-jutsu!" Dan yelled. — Clifford Riley

It's easy to sell good news like this, and the authors confidently rely on classic fallacious arguments. They argue by declaration, which is what makes the books so amusing. In matter-of-fact, authoritative tones, the authors tell us how plants and human beings exchange energy - or they describe what angels look like, whether or how they're sexed, how they communicate with human beings, and how they differ from ghosts. Readers might be expected to wonder, How do they know? — Wendy Kaminer

Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Whether white, black, Asian, or Latino, American students rarely arrive at college as habitual readers, which means that few of them have more than a nominal connection to the past. It is absurd to speak, as does the academic left, of classic Western texts dominating and silencing everyone but a ruling elite or white males. The vast majority of white students do not know the intellectual tradition that is allegedly theirs any better than black or brown ones do. They have not read its books, and when they do read them, they may respond well, but they will not respond in the way that the academic left supposes. For there is only one 'hegemonic discourse' in the lives of American undergraduates, and that is the mass media. Most high schools can't begin to compete against a torrent of imagery and sound that makes every moment but the present seem quaint, bloodless, or dead. — David Denby

You aren't going to go crazy," I said firmly. "You're stronger than you think. The next time you feel that way, find something to focus on, to remind you of who are."
"Like what? Got some magic object in mind?"
"Doesn't have to be magic," I said. I racked my brain. "Here." I unfastened the golden cross necklace. "This has always been good for me. Maybe it'll help you." I set it in his hand, but he caught hold of mine before I could pull back — Richelle Mead

We're all trapped in a net of consequences, condemned to paths outside our control. It's the way of things. — Juliet Marillier

Singing is my dream and, while it may have not been a commercial success, critically I was thrilled with the reception my first album got. — Minnie Driver

I'm sorry and ashamed to report that I'm not actually a Jew. I was pretending to be a Jew to minimize the holocaust. — Andy Kindler