Every print, sculpture or painting owns a story; it is like reading a novel.
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.
Books delivered me from you, from misery, from prohibitions, from everything.
Books constitute the safest refuge against this world of horror.
I think it very important never to confuse psychology or literature with photography.
Promoters will never book you in their shows if you come late and drunk.
Morality's not practical. Morality's a gesture. A complicated gesture learnt from books.
Once you know about critics, you know about literature. Literature is whatever survives the critics.
We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece.
Sartor Resartus is simply unreadable, and for me that always sort of spoils a book.