Stamped Book Quotes & Sayings

I hate to see great works of literature ghettoized, whereas others that conform to the rules, conventions, and procedures of the genre we call literary fiction get accorded greater esteem and privilege. I also have a problem with how books are marketed, with certain cover designs and typefaces. They're often stamped with an identity that has nothing to do with their effect on the reader. — Michael Chabon

Books that take us to an exotic place and never let the grit of that place get under our fingernails...are far less successful. One leaves the places of the book and never feels like one's really gotten one's imaginative passport stamped. — Andrew Lazo

A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
[Baffled at a Bookcase (London Review of Books, Vol. 33 No. 15, 28 July 2011)] — Alan Bennett

Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive. — Sinclair Lewis

I was in the midst of it all - saw war where war is worst - not on the battlefields, no - in the hospitals ... there I mixed with it: and now I say God damn the wars - allw ars: God damn every war: God damn 'em! God damn 'em! — Walt Whitman

It was my father who had taught me to love books for themselves, the smell of the vellum and paper, the rare authority of the pages. "Here, do you see this marvelous book, the skins of 182 sheep," he once pronounced as he slapped his hand down on the stamped leather cover boards. "The book is a flock, a jewel, a cemetery, a lantern, a garden, a piss pot; pigments ground of precious minerals, charred bone, lamp soot, rare plants and insects. Pigments formed at the corrosion of copper plates suspended above urine. — Regina O'Melveny

As a Sufi I had sworn to protect life and do no harm. In this world of illusions, so many people were readt ti fight without any reason, and so many others fought for a reason. But the Sufi was the one who wouldn't fight even if he had a reason. — Elif Shafak

I think I might have something for you today, he says, reaches beneath the counter, and his hand comes back with a book, clothbound cover the color of antique ivory, title and author stamped in faded gold and art deco letters. Best Ghost Stories by Algernon Blackwood, and she lifts it carefully off the countertop, picks it up the way someone else might lift a diamond necklace or a sick kitten, and opens the book to the frontispiece and title page, black-and-white photo of the author in a dapper suit, sadkind eyes and his bow tie just a little crooked. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

Not if you pay attention. I mean, you're sending all the right signals - no earrings, heels under two inches, your hair is pulled back, you're wearing reading glasses with no book, drinking a Grey Goose martini, which means you had a hell of a week and a beer just wouldn't do it. And if that wasn't clear enough, there's always the "fuck off" sign that you have stamped on your forehead. — Will Smith

The library knows that it is a temporary fix. We have a stamp for the inside front cover: BROKEN SPINE NOTED. It is like a bracelet worn by a diabetic. When you return the book with this message stamped inside, we know you're not the one responsible for this horrible thing. It was some other bastard before you. The book has a preexisting condition. — Don Borchert

Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you are capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy. — Thomas Merton

We're products of our choices. — Susane Colasanti

I knew - but I did know that I had crossed 700 The border. Everything I loved was lost But no aorta could report regret. A sun of rubber was convulsed and set; And blood-black nothingness began to spin A system of cells interlinked within Cells interlinked within cells interlinked Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct Against the dark, a tall white fountain played. I — Vladimir Nabokov

One can't help thinking, Daddy, what a colourless life a man is forced to lead, when one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are to him mere empty words. Whereas a woman- whether she is interested in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge- is fundamentally and always interested in clothes. — Jean Webster

If you read on and unlock the secrets of time travel, you could be responsible for the dissolution of every puppy that ever exists - past, present and future. And we'll tell everyone it was you. — Phil Hornshaw

As a child, I had the opportunity to meet the captain onboard a British Airways flight. It was so exciting to see the cockpit and controls. I was in awe of the captain, and he stamped my log book, which I still have to this day. — Orlando Bloom

Desire, said the Buddha, is the cause of suffering. But without desire, what delight? — Edward Abbey

The book was not new. Dates were stamped on the front endpaper, in and out dates. A rent book. A lending library of elaborate smut.
I rewrapped the book and locked it up behind the seat. A racket like that, out in the open on the boulevard, seemed to mean plenty of protection. I sat there and poisoned myself with cigarette smoke and listened to the rain and thought about it. — Raymond Chandler

She'd taken one look at him the first time they'd met and it was like her body had just erupted into a ball of heat and hunger. — Katie Reus

The world is too complex to give you merely a list of practices to follow. What managers in the 21st century need most is insight so that they can develop their own prescriptions for their own particular needs — Jurgen Appelo

The cosmic perspective reminds us that in space, where there is no air, a flag will not wave - an indication that perhaps flag waving and space exploration do not mix. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I had written a novel that was more of a classic linear novel, and I worked on it and worked on it for years, and it always seemed like it wouldn't catch fire. At a certain point I just scrapped it all, and I kept maybe 15 percent of it, and I wrote those parts out on note cards. — Jenny Offill

Judgment is forced upon us by experience — Samuel Johnson