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.
I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.
Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be.
A reading-machine, always wound up and going,
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
Mr. McGregor’s a nasty piece of work, isn’t he? Quite the Darth Vader of children’s literature.
The number one book of the ages was written by a committee, and it was called The Bible.
The book to end all books. The final book. After this, there is no more writing, no more publishing.