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.
“We can never underestimate how reading can impact on a person’s life.”
For me, literature works exactly the same way: everything human beings write is useful.
It’s a beautiful thing to find your book at a community book store that has raised you
Erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.
The most explosive book of the twentieth century... I'm not kidding, it explodes!!
I wish I could write a book that will be read for as long as our civilization lasts...