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.
In this the Fire Book of the NiTo Ichi school of strategy I describe fighting as fire.
Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books.
Writing a book is like masturbation, and making a movie is like an orgy.
Parents should leave books lying around marked "forbidden" if they want their children to read.
My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.
Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest.