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.
You should always book tradesmen by personal recommendation.
I search for secrets and answers, no matter how bizarre, like an old woman reading tea-leaves.
It is only by struggling with difficult books, books over one's head, that anyone learns to read.
Liz isn’t simply not going by the book, she’s just about throwing it in the shredder.
I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.
"Remember literature, Charlie? It involved getting drunk and getting laid."
When you read the sacred Scriptures, or any other book, never think how you read, but what you read.
HIPCRIME You committed one when you opened this book. Keep it up. It's our only hope.
A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.
The Wealth of Nations may not be an original book, but it is unquestionably a masterpiece.