If somebody could write a book for people who never read they would make a fortune.
Books Quotes
Samuel Johnson is on this page more than once for good reason. In The Rambler (1750) he wrote that no place gives a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. Boswell (1791) has him saying that a man ought to read just as inclination leads him, because what he reads as a task will do him little good. Alberto Manguel, Emerson and Northrop Frye are among the most-quoted writers here, which is what you would expect from people who spent their working lives reading.
Two entries are flagged as misattributed. The quip about a manuscript that is both good and original, with the good parts not original and the original parts not good, is credited to Johnson. “Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!” is credited to General Patton.
Once a sign of economic power, reading is now the province of those whose time lacks market value.
Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.
Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.
In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language.
I have found out that reading is a slavish sort of dreaming. If I must dream, why not my own dreams?
If you make it best SF book of the 1960s, I'll go along with it.
A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual.
The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything.
For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste.