Good literature, all if it, is supposed to illuminate the human condition.
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.
It is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
Whoever converses much among the old books, will be something hard to please among the new.
What the cinema can do better than literature or the spoken drama is to be fantastic.
The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business.
Books are waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought.