Short Books Quotes & Sayings

Life is short and the number of books is appalling. — John Cowper Powys

I write novellas, short books, whatever. I set out to write a good story not write a dictionary. — Jason E. Hodges

The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example. The great ones attract disciples, lesser figures whose mission is to preach and to teach. These are gospelers who, unequal to the highest task, spend their lives in converting others. The great ones are indifferent, in the profoundest sense. They don't ask you to believe: they electrify you by their behavior. They are the awakeners. What you do with your petty life is of no concern to them. What you do with your life is only of concern to you, they seem to say. In short, their only purpose here on earth is to inspire. And what more can one ask of a human being than that? — Henry Miller

Writing for Mills and Boon taught me a lot of discipline. You have to produce books in a short time scale and four a year, and it teaches you a lot. — Penny Jordan

It was Sci-Fi and fantasy that got me reading, and Sci-Fi writers in particular have pack rat minds. They introduce all sorts of interesting themes and ideas into their books, and so for me it was a short leap to go from the fantasy and Sci-Fi genres to folklore, mythology, ancient history and philosophy. I did not read philosophy because I set out to become a philosopher; I read it because it looked interesting. — Terry Pratchett

I read more than I had in years-novels, short stories, three long nonfiction books about how we had stumbled into the Iraq mess (the short answer appeared to have W for a middle initial and a dick for a Vice President). — Stephen King

The ideal reader of my novels is a lapsed Catholic and failed musician, short-sighted, colour-blind, auditorily biased, who has read the books that I have read. — Anthony Burgess

To know India and her peoples, one has to know the monsoon. one has to know the monsoon. It is not enough to read about it in books, or see it on the cinema screen, or hear someone talk about it. It has to be a personal experience because nothing short of living through it can fully convey all it means to a people for whom it is not only the source of life, but also their most exciting impact with nature. — Khushwant Singh

As the wind continued to howl and groan through her decaying body, she began to sing her story. — Ken Liu

One day, I decided to be an island. I took off my clothes and walked into the sea, then floated there, bobbing along with the tide, suspended by my inflatable tube and water wings. — Ng Yi-Sheng

Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don't use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.
And, above all, poetry is compacted metaphor or simile. Such metaphors, like Japanese paper flowers, may expand outward into gigantic shapes. Ideas lie everywhere through the poetry books, yet how rarely have I heard short story teachers recommending them for browsing.
What poetry? Any poetry that makes your hair stand up along your arms. Don't force yourself too hard. Take it easy. Over the years you may catch up to, move even with, and pass T. S. Eliot on your way to other pastures. You say you don't understand Dylan Thomas? Yes, but your ganglion does, and your secret wits, and all your unborn children. Read him, as you can read a horse with your eyes, set free and charging over an endless green meadow on a windy day. — Ray Bradbury

An editor named Kerrie Hughes wanted me to write a short story that brought my fire-spider Smudge from my goblin books into the present-day world. I came up with libriomancy as a way to make that happen. — Jim C. Hines

Life being so short, and the possible books to write so many, it's good to function by night as well as by day; but would anybody become a writer if they realised at the outset what the working hours were? — Hilary Mantel

The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged. — Robert Morgan

You must often leave your country, not necessarily physically, but mentally often! Leave your own music; leave your own religion! Leave your own culture, your own books and ideas! Walk around in the world of others, listen to what they speak and learn what they think! In short, get out of your puddle, sail to the ocean! Move, friend, move out of your country! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Old books, old wine, old Nankin blue;-
All things, in short, to which belong
The charm, the grace that Time
makes strong,
All these I prize, but (entre nous)
Old friends are best! — Henry Austin Dobson

Life Is Too Short--So Kiss Slowly,
Laugh Insanely, Love Truly,
And Live With Passion. — Andy Vogt

Life is too short to read books whose cleverness makes them impenetrable. A good book should keep you awake at night, flickering through pages as you promise yourself just one more chapter; they shouldn't put you to sleep as you tackle a paragraph for the fifth time. — Kate Morton

The Strand proudly proclaims itself as home to eighteen miles of books. I have no idea how this is calculated. Does one stack all the books on top of each other to get the eighteen miles? Or do you put them end to end, to create a bridge between Manhattan and, say, Short Hills, New Jersey, eighteen miles away? Were there eighteen miles of shelves? No one knew. We all just took the bookstore at its word, because if you couldn't trust a bookstore, what could you trust? Whatever — Rachel Cohn

Regarding children's literature, look for interesting content and well-constructed sentences clothed in literary language. The imagination should be warmed and the book should hold the interest of the child. Life's too short to spend time with books that bore us. — Deborah Taylor-Hough

Dear Ms. Dunne,
I was hoping that you could come to the school to discuss Katie's rapidly deteriorating behavior in class. Her attention span is short and she distracts other students by her note-passing. How does Wednesday after school sound? You can reach me at the school. You know the number.
Ms. Casey

To Katie,
What do you mean your mum just laughed?
From Toby

Ahern, Cecelia (2005-02-01). Love, Rosie (p. 99). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition. — Cecelia Ahern

Whenever we could steal a few minutes alone, that's when we became the "other", the charged-up thing that kept me up at night, afraid of falling so fast, afraid of losing, afraid it wouldn't last once everyone found out. We stole too-short kisses in the front hallway, shared knowing and devious looks across the table when we weren't being watched. We snuck out every night behind the house to watch for shooting stars and whisper about life, our favorite books, about the meaning of songs. It wasn't the topics themselves that changed, we had talked about all of those things befores. But now, there was a new intensity, an urgency to know as much as we could, to fit as much as possible into our final nights, before somebody found out. — Sarah Ockler

I'm a novelist, editor, short story writer. I also teach, and I freelance sometimes as an arts consultant. Most of my books have been published by Warner Books, now known as Grand Central Books. — Nalo Hopkinson

I'm not an overnight success. My early publishing history, through my first five books, was unfortunate in many respects, typified by a couple of short anecdotes. — John Lescroart

Ciabattari is a master of transformation as she gives these stories of loss, woe, crisis and collapse the salutary and sometimes bracing pleasures of plain good fiction.
Kirkus Reviews — Jane Ciabattari

You are in love with my husband. You need some acting lessons to learn to hide it better. — Mary Papas

Even so-called 'short novels' are pretty long and can take several hours to read, so make sure you stay hydrated. I like to keep an isotonic sports drink handy if I'm going to be reading for any longer than forty minutes. I'll also take regular breaks and make sure I'm wearing loose-fitting clothing. — Richard Ayoade

The only thing I know about books, is that they should be like a woman's dress: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting. I read people. — James A. Newman

Books educate people and educated people ask awkward questions of those who govern them. The educated, in short, are considered ungovernable. Better to keep people ignorant of the past and to concentrate their minds on the utopia that lies ahead. — The Economist

Children's literature is considerably more functional than a good portion of adult literature. If I were cynical, I might say: Children's books are written to be read; adult books are written to be talked about at cocktail parties.
There may be more truth that cynicism in that statement. My impression is that many adult books are written only to shock the reader (a short term goal, since shock quickly turns into boredom) or as calisthenics for the author's ego.
On the other hand, children's literature seems an area where books function as they were meant to; where they amaze, delight, and move our emotions. We can respect and admire any number of current adult books, but I find it hard to love them. — Lloyd Alexander

Life is too short to waste your time with bad books. — Michael Kruger

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.
In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited. — Arthur Schopenhauer

The novel, he was saying, was a flabby old whore.
A flabby old whore! the older man said looking delighted.
She was serviceable, roomy, warm and familiar, the younger was saying, but really a bit used up, really a bit too slack and loose.
Slack and loose! the older said laughing.
Whereas the short story, by comparison, was a nimble goddess, a slim nymph. Because so few people had mastered the short story she was still in very good shape.
... I idly wondered how many of the books in my house were fuckable and how good they'd be in bed. — Ali Smith

By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Do not read good books-life is too short for that-read only the best. — Ernest Dimnet

Unfortunately, for far too many, focused learning ends at college graduation. They read about stocks and bonds instead of reading books that improve their mind. They compare their cash salary to their peers' instead of comparing lessons learned. They invest in the stock market and neglect investing in themselves. They focus, in short, on hard assets instead of soft assets. This is a mistake. — Reid Hoffman

Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?' enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.
'One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,' says Sugar. 'It saves time and paper.' Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, 'If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?'
Sophie answers without hesitation.
'I would read a thousand million pages, Miss, if all the words were words I could understand. — Michel Faber

I think it will last," said Grandfather. "In my experience when people once begin to read they go on. They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must. Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greed for life, you know, and our short span of existence can't give us all that we hunger for, the time is too short and our capacity not large enough. But in books we experience all life vicariously. — Elizabeth Goudge

I am drawn to writing books about magic and the supernatural because those are the types of books I like to read. I've written many short stories with realistic settings, and I certainly wouldn't rule out realistic novels in the future! — Cassandra Clare

Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ear; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you've got those autumn blues. And some...well, some are pink candy floss that tingles in your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful voice. Like a short, torrid love affair. — Nina George

Everybody should read something. Otherwise we all fall down into the pit of ignorance. Many are down there. Some people fall in it forever. Their lives mean nothing. They should not exist. (From the short story, "Charity".) — Charles Baxter

So Mo began filling the silence with words. He lured them out of the pages as if they had only been waiting for his voice, words long and short, words sharp and soft, cooing, purring words. They danced through the room, painting stained glass pictures, tickling the skin. Even when Meggie nodded off she could still hear them, although Mo had closed the book long ago. Words that explained the world to her, its dark side and its light side, words that built a wall to keep out bad dreams. And not a single bad dream came over that wall for the rest of the night. — Cornelia Funke

Let [the Constitution] be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges, let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation. — Abraham Lincoln

The four of us got back into the car. In an instant, I distinctly heard a "soundless music". It was the melody of friendship, the sound of a perfectly tuned quartet who got together by chance, four hearts playing in harmony. — You Jin

Television and cable have become the new independent films, in a sense, for writers and actors to gravitate towards. That's why I like short films, too; I love doing readings, audio books, working with young filmmakers; anything that keeps you from getting blase about yourself or in a rut. — Campbell Scott

The short and obscene sentence of Poseidonius about the rubbing together of two small pieces of flesh, which I have seen you copy in your exercise books with the application of a good schoolboy, does no more to define the phenomenon of love than the cord touched by the finger accounts for the infinite miracle of sounds. Such a dictum is less an insult to pleasure than to the flesh itself, that amazing instrument of muscles, blood, and skin, that red-tinged cloud whose lightning is the soul. — Marguerite Yourcenar

Then letters came in but three times a week: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month; - but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Here is an entry from June 12, 1989, three and a half years after my father's death: I feel so helpless sometimes. I know that my destiny is in my own hands, but to what extent? There is so much to think about - family, friends, career, LIFE! Will my grandchildren read this, years from now, and see it as the only thing to remember me by? No legacy? We're here for such a short time. But what exactly are my ambitions? I thought ambition was viewed as bad, as wrong. It turns out it's the key to everything. Where will I be in ten years? I want to be successful. What do I believe in - really believe in? Hell, Megyn, what do you even know about the world? I want to know what my teachers know. Where is it all? In books? I know where it is - it's in years and years of research and experiences. That's not something I can just have. I have to get it all for myself. I'm just sitting here wondering who I really am inside and - who am I to become? — Megyn Kelly

I don't believe in true love and I certainly don't believe in love at first sight. Insta-love isn't something that happens in real life. It happens in the books I read, but not in the world I live. Though here stands this beautiful, sexy, funny, sweet and amazing guy who has done everything short of professing love at first sight to me and I'm still standing here like a pair of lungs suffocating, needing him in order to breathe. I'm not running, I'm here, submerged in all of my vulnerability, taking the biggest chance I ever have with my heart and soul. I hope I'm choosing wisely. I stared at the ground and felt his eyes on the top of my head. — Kathryn Perez

Holly Barker series was a great read for me. Stuart gives short chapters and continued action all through his books. — Stuart Woods

A country Sabbath is suggestive of rest and peace and quiet--sleepy blue skies, shadows golden and green, sunny fields, and the pink and snow of apple blossoms. June is at her height of radiant loveliness now. What a pity it is such a short time.

I am here in my old room--my little absolute kingdom. Here I read, write and dream. My favourite pictures adorn the walls, my well read books are on their shelves and my clock ticks me cheerful company. — L.M. Montgomery

To be honest the future of The Life of One Kid... won't go very far... but I won't only put books/films.... and so on and so on... and some short stories I am going to put... from my darkness. — Deyth Banger

If writers, like comedians or singers, could only hear themselves bombing as they worked, it's likely that certain books would be cut short after the first few leaden sentences. — Walter Kirn

Any moment now, I thought, he was going to wake up. Any moment. — O Thiam Chin

Pat Moynihan could write books with one hand and legislate with the other. I can't; I have a short attention span. The slightest distraction would take me away from writing. — Barney Frank

My life is in these books. Read these and know my heart. We are not quire novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works. — Gabrielle Zevin

Life, it's a long road but a short ride. — Paul Carafotes

Because life's too short to read depressing books. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

People who don't normally read make an exception for my books, possibly because they're short. — Mitch Albom

I have written about 240 books and some short stories, too. It's taken me many years. — Eve Bunting

In short, our gentleman became so immersed in his reading that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in poring over his books, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. He filled his imagination with everything he had read, with enchantments, knightly encounters, battles, challenges, wounds, with tales of love and its torments, and all sorts of impossible things, and as a result had come to believe that all these fictitious happenings were true; they were more real to him than anything else in the world. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Oh no, princess. I would never carry out anything which could harm your being. This was just something I was told to say. I'm not sure what is planned, if, you go against their wishes. But, I'm sure you're smart and won't test them. — Chayada Welljaipet

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short. — Arthur Schopenhauer

New thing is made in writting books, (novels, short stories... stories...)... It's to be build a character which you will love you will like him.... and one moment he dies... isn't it awesome? — Deyth Banger

This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. — Stephen King

The words you can't find, you borrow.
We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.
My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.
We are not quite novels.
The analogy he is looking for is almost there.
We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.
In the end, we are collected works. — Gabrielle Zevin

Age is real life is short. It's foolhardy to deny it. We grow up, our bodies grow frail, death is coming. There's so much I want to do!
There's a whole world out there I havent seen, ppl I havent met and who havent know me.
God, there 're a million books I want to read.
I dont want to sleep ... I want to be awake.
This is my life - I want to live it — Mary Alice Monroe

She remembered the way the damp, coarse sand had clumped to her legs and hands, and burrowed beneath her nails and into the folds of her clothes, and she had wondered why the British children in her storybooks were always excited about going to the beach - just as now she wondered why the light from the lighthouse seemed to be coming from the landward side of the expressway. "I thought a lighthouse is out at sea. — Yu-Mei Balasingamchow

I remember clearly the afternoon that she stood at the corner beside the door of the tourist centre in Gdansk. — You Jin

She would keep playing the role of the winner as long as the audience believed her. — Mary Papas

Life is too short to read books that I'm not enjoying. — Melissa Marr

When it repudiates a past paradigm, a scientific community simultaneously renounces, as a fit subject for professional scrutiny, most of the books and articles in which that paradigm had been embodied. Scientific education makes use of no equivalent for the art museum or the library of classics, and the result is a sometimes drastic distortion in the scientist's perception of his discipline's past. More than the practitioners of other creative fields, he comes to see it as leading in a straight line to the discipline's present vantage. In short, he comes to see it as progress. No alternative is available to him while he remains in the field. — Thomas S. Kuhn

I usually have about four books on the go - a bedside book, a lavatory book, a downstairs book, and the book in my study that I read sneakily while I should be writing. Short stories for the lavatory, obviously. — Mal Peet

I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave abominably, and with such abominable results. They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books. — Kurt Vonnegut

Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey
and returned. — Jasper Fforde

In a short amount of time, I've lived so much, had so many experiences and met so many different types of people and even lived in so many countries. If I had been in school, I'd be learning about the world from books. — Jennifer Lawrence

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile. — Orhan Pamuk

Sometimes books feel like the only thing that keep her sane. Actually, she knows that they're the only reason she's still even vaguely okay right now. That's what she clings to: reading great books and seeing great films and, for as long as she's immersed in them, being able to forget, if only for a short time, about the reality of her life. — Steph Bowe

I started by writing short stories, but they weren't very good; I tried them on various magazines, and none of them was published. People were nicer then about turning you down, and so I didn't lose heart - I kept on writing and wrote a lot of books, one or two of which I finished, and others I didn't. — Ruth Rendell

It should be possible to exist with only a short shelf of books, to read and give away. After all - we may not open a book, once read, for ten years or more. But the act of reading has made it part of us - to relinquish it would be to lose an extension of our being. — Pam Brown

I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I've always thought the best place for my photographs was inside books of my own creation. — Sam Abell

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 have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them
one or two of them particularly
almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are taught to feel
to be on their guard against attacks on their virtue; for no average man
no man short of a sensual savage
will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look 'Come on' he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes. — Thomas Hardy

Short Brief Story, How I started to make this which you see today?
I'm talking about the works, most people doubt about that I will become a writer. Most people said me this, you must drink a lot of teas, to become a writer (you must have a rich vocabulary and many other stuff!). But check out what Stephen King said in his book "Memoir and Craft" this
amazed me.
Most people know him as an actor or as an book writer...Maybe this can change some people opinions which didn't believe in me (in their opinions), I just show in my books a new world, YEAH I read some books in this time, I watched some films, I finished some games, some interesting stuff happened and many other things. But the best thing everything as much as possible was added in the books Series The Life Of One Kid! — Deyth Banger

When we found each other, I was very flabbergasted by his appearance. This is an American? I thought. And also, This is a Jew? He was severely short. He wore spectacles and had diminutive hairs which were not split anywhere, but rested on his head like a Shapka. (If i were like Father, I might even have dubbed him Shapka.) He did not appear like either the Americans I had witnessed in magazines, with yellow hairs and muscles, or the Jews from history books, with no hair and prominent bones. He was wearing nor blue jeans nor the uniform. In truth, he did not look like anything special at all. I was underwhelmed to the maximum. — Jonathan Safran Foer

This is no tall story. Nor is it a short story. Indeed, a story cannot be measured, for their realities stretch far beyond a page or one person's life. — Leah Broadby

One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk. — Marina Tsvetaeva

Well, Bradbury's a genius. Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books of all time, and The Illustrated Man as a collection of short stories ranks up there. When you read it you realize how influential it is on so many other stories and people. — Zack Snyder

I'm a fan of meeting readers face to face, at reader events, where we're able to sit down and take some time to talk. Too often, at regular book signings, I meet readers who have traveled six or eight hours to see me, and I'm unable to spend more than a few short minutes chatting with them as I sign books. — Suzanne Brockmann

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz — William L.K.

My books rustled by like a military of ducks. My mother had never liked my books. She'd said they kept me from real life, by which I think she meant men, or money, or both. Always accusing things of precisely the crimes they hadn't committed.
(From the short story: Once an Empire) — Rivka Galchen

How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have been useful to provide us with more modest, more genuine things, that had less pretensions: short stories, memoirs, notes, testimonials, or at any rate, books that are open, without a preconceived plan. — Italo Calvino

It took me thirty-six years; and, in some fifty stories, ranging in length from short-shorts to novels, I think I must have touched, in one way or another, on every aspect of computers and computerization. And (mark this!) I did it without ever knowing anything at all about computers in any real sense. To this day, I don't. I am totally inept with machinery ... on my typewriter I turn out books at the contemptible rate of one a month — Isaac Asimov

My favorite books to give or get are short story collections. And always paperbacks because they are easy to carry as you travel. — Chuck Palahniuk

She looked at me like I was stupid, the same look the girls in JC used to give me when I hadn't heard of the latest boy band, or turned up at Zouk wearing unfashionable clothes. — Jeremy Tiang

Don't you mind being short?' she blurted. He spread his small hands and looked at them. 'I am a magician, not a princess. A pony costs less to keep than a horse, which means I can buy more books.' He paused. 'It is not always a bad thing, to be overlooked. — Robin McKinley

One day I was in Starbucks going through one of my books on accounting, and this beautiful young woman came up to me and said, 'My accounting book is different from yours.' Her name was Joyce, she had a background in finance and administration and ran a surgery center. Within a short time, we were married. — David Schweikert

Sweetheart, darling, dearest, it was funny to think that these endearments, which used to sound exceedingly sentimental in movies and books, now held great importance, simple but true verbal affirmations of how they felt for each other. They were words only the heart could hear and understand, words that could impart entire pentameter sonnets in their few, short syllables. — E.A. Bucchianeri

There is a lot of talk in publishing these days that we need to become more like the Internet: We need to make books for short attention spans with bells and whistles - books, in short, that are as much like 'Angry Birds' as possible. But I think that's a terrible idea. — John Green

Life is short, but art is long. Sophocles is dead, but Oedipus lives on ... Each of us when we read a great piece of literature is a little more human than befor — James W. Sire