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Books and reading

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“Every book takes me from 35 to 41 days to write. I don't know why that is. I've tried to get it down to 30 or 31, depending on the length of the month, but it won't work. I don't drink while I'm writing because it fuddles my logical processes, but when I finish a book I go down to the kitchen and pour myself a big belt.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Graham Greene’s] ability to encapsulate the essence of an exotic setting in a single book is exemplified in The Heart of the Matter (1948); his contemporary Evelyn Waugh stated that the West Africa of that book replaced the true remembered West Africa of his own experience.”
Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“, Paramount Theatre, New York Many thanks for your saxophone received here today. I have never taken lessons but will start practicing every night and hope the hotel guests will not complain. You said you were sending book that would tell me how to play saxophone. Sorry, book not received. Best wishes. Babe Ruth”
Babe Ruth (1895–1948) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Telegram sent on July 9, 1927; reproduced in "Babe Ruth's Sax", Variety (July 20, 1927), p. 25
“The one by L. Ron Hubbard...I'm not in favor of his religion by any means, but he wrote a book called Battlefield Earth that was a very fun science fiction book.”
Mitt Romney (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This book is not a biography; it is the confession of every man who struggles. In publishing it I have fulfilled my duty, the duty of a person who struggled much, was embittered in his life, and had many hopes. I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, love Christ.”
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With a book and a steeple, with a bell and a key they would bind it forever, but they can't," said he. "Oh, the book it will perish and the steeple will fall, but the light will be shining at the end of it all.”
Sydney Carter (1915–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm signed to release the third book in the series. When they invited me to do the Noelle book I had started on an autobiography, sort of, because I still get a lot of questions about that. I done so much music in my life, and writing is a beautiful outlet to continue to grow.”
Gloria Estefan (born 1957) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reuters (November 17, 2006)
“I would say the main competition for the book is the video because for some reason people feel they need to come home with a rectangular block of something that they don't know the end of. The big advantage of a book is it's very easy to rewind. Close it and you're right back at the beginning.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is, of course, provision for consultation of the record by the usual scheme of indexing. If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions.”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's a little book I'm thinking of writing — "Swan Song" is what I shall call it. The song of the dying. And my book will be incense burnt at the deathbed of this society, damned with the damnation of its own impotence.”
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foma Gordeyev (1899) [also translated as The Man Who Was Afraid; the English music group Led Zeppelin would later name their record label "Swan Song".
“Aldous Huxley took the drug mescaline and then chronicled his experience in the book The Doors of Perception. Now, I don't actually think that's the first thing he wrote: he probably wrote 'my brain is melting' ten thousand times, but it was the book that the critics latched on to.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To eliminate sex from a book is to eliminate the great creative force in the world. Out of the sexual instinct rises all the art, you know. … No eunuch ever wrote a book.”
Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm proud to publish this book under my own name, though I don't fully understand the mechanics of its production or the nature of the personality I assume in delivering it. I had no conscious work to do on the book at all. I simply went into trance twice a week, spoke in a "mediumistic" capacity for Seth, or as Seth, and dictated the words to my husband, Robert Butts, who wrote them down.”
Jane Roberts (1929–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let X equal X You know, it could be you It's a sky-blue sky The satellites are out tonight Let X equal X...You know, I could write a book And this book would be thick enough to stun an ox 'cause I can see the future, and it's a place... Thanks for all the presents...Thanks for introducing me to the Chief”
Laurie Anderson (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ozzy Osbourne used to snort ants. Led Zeppelin had sex with hookers on private planes. And I start an on-tour book club. Because one can only snort so many ants and have so much sex before one starts to long for the comfort and companionship of a good book.”
Moby (born 1965) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: to Copenhagen. bumpy roads & ant colonies," journal entry (7 October 2002) at moby.com
“My quarrel with him is, that his works contain nothing worth quoting; and a book that furnishes no quotations, is, me judice [in my opinion], no book - it is a plaything.”
Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) said by 1866 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book.... One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.”
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) first seen 1893 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to N.M. Ezhov (March 22, 1893)
“A writer is a man like any other: he dreams. And my dream was to be able to say of this book, when I finished: 'This is a book about Alentejo'.”
José Saramago (1922–2010) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in José Saramago: il bagaglio dello scrittore‎, page 41, by Giulia Lanciani, published by Bulzoni, 1996 , 9788871199337 (256 pages).
“To me, the Bible is a book. Important, no doubt, but a book.”
José Saramago (1922–2010) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview to the newspaper "O Globo", 2009.
“Book/Play1 (Book/Play1)”
Dan Henninger wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Danny Tidwell, Musa W. Dube, Paula Brackston, Sabra Johnson
“Book/Play2 (Book/Play2) -->”
Dan Henninger wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Danny Tidwell, Musa W. Dube, Paula Brackston, Sabra Johnson
“I thought about David Bohm. He wrote a really good book on quantum mechanics — largely because Einstein had half convinced him that the theory was faulty. He wanted to get down his thoughts on paper. By the time he'd finished the book he didn't believe in the theory.”
Cormac McCarthy (1933–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.”
V. S. Naipaul (1932–2018) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "V.S. Naipaul in Search of Himself: A Conversation" with Mel Gussow, The New York Times, (24 April 1994)
“Book publishing was never a heaven “run by editors”, and it is by no means today a hell “run by accountants.” If our “sole interest” was “instant profit,” not only would we never do any number of the things we actually do every day, we probably wouldn’t be in book publishing at all.”
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (born 1959) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A simple, mildly incredulous philippic, in Making Light, April 7, 2010.
“Every book should be an incentive to studying the language. Every book should provide at least some contact with the original, for example, a parallel text and a glossary. At present we are struggling to take the translation business away from the caste leader, for whom the mass reader is a fiction, an "easy mark" ignorant of foreign languages.”
Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ON TRANSLATIONS translated into English in The complete critical prose (1997)
“Eminent historians” is what they call one another, and what their fans call them. When they don’t have an answer to an opponent’s arguments, they pompously dismiss him as not having enough “eminence”. So when Arun Shourie wrote about some abuses in this sector, he called his book Eminent Historians. It is also a pun on an old book about prominent colonial-age personalities, Eminent Victorians.”
Arun Shourie (born 1941) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Elst, K. Interview, Swarajya, May 2016)
“Wilson was not, in the academic sense, a scholar or historian. He was an enormous reader, one of those readers who are perpetually on the scent from book to book. He was the old-style man of letters, but galvanized and with the iron of purpose in him.”
V. S. Pritchett (1900–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time.”
Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The March of Literature (1939)
“After all, if you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you also have to believe that no one was ever improved by a book (or a play or a movie). You have to believe, in other words, that all art is morally trivial and that, consequently, all education is morally irrelevant. No one, not even a university professor, really believes that.”
Irving Kristol (1920–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The book of the Bible which most obviously resembles the Taoist classics is Ecclesiastes. But at the same time there is much in the teaching of the Gospels on simplicity, childlikeness, and humility, which responds to the deepest aspirations of the Chuang Tzu book and the Tao Teh Ching.”
Thomas Merton (1915–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.”
Brian O'Nolan (1911–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In contrast to the old monumental art [the book] itself goes to the people, and does not stand like a cathedral in one place waiting for someone to approach.. ..[The book is the] monument of the future. (c. 1930)”
El Lissitsky (1890–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why should we add your book to the atomic weapons arrayed against us by our enemies. Publication of your book would help our enemies.”
Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A book is simply the container of an idea—like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.”
Angela Carter (1940–1992) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (1992).
“I had been trying to find a publisher who would put some of my stuff into book form, but I met with no encouragement. Every well-known publisher in the United States turned down Tarzan of the Apes, including A.C. McClurg & Co., who finally issued it, my first story in book form.”
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Words on being presented with a Bible, as reported in the Washington Daily Morning Chronicle (8 September 1864)
“I look at life like a big book and sometimes you get half way through it and go 'Even though I've been enjoying it, I've had enough. Give us another book'”
Karl Pilkington (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To say that an author is a reader or a reader an author, to see a book as a human being or a human being a book, to describe the world as text or a text as the world, are ways of naming the readers craft.”
Alberto Manguel (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the helter-skelter of this book, I didn’t develop my views as theory. In fact, I even believe that efforts of that kind are tainted with ponderousness. Nietzsche wrote “with his blood,” and criticizing, or, better, experiencing him means pouring out one’s lifeblood. … It was only with my life that I wrote the Nietzsche book that I had planned.”
Georges Bataille (1897–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It takes some audacity for a non-economist to write a book about economics, especially if the book deals with one of the yardsticks of the profession, i.e., money.”
Margrit Kennedy (1939–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Me and a book is a party. Me and a book and a cup of coffee is an orgy.”
Robert Fripp (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is a book by a writer who does some teaching, not a book by a teacher who does some writing, and one of the satisfactions of the craft is that there's always something new to learn.”
William Zinsser (1922–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The purpose of this book is exactly expressed in its title, “The Key to Theosophy,” and needs but few words of explanation. It is not a complete or exhaustive text-book of Theosophy, but only a key to unlock the door that leads to the deeper study.”
Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We hold that a good book which gives people food for thought, which strengthens and clears their minds, and enables them to grasp truths which they have dimly felt but could not formulate—we hold that such a book does a real, substantial good.”
Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we took something like any fiction, any holy book… and destroyed it, in a thousand year’s time that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book, and every fact, and destroyed them all, in a thousand years time, they’d all be back.”
Ricky Gervais (born 1961) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, first broadcast by CBS on 1 February 2017.
“I went to a friend who's a girl and asked her, 'What's it like to have sex for the first time, if you're Irish – so you're modest, and it's the 1950s – so you've never seen it in a film?' I listened carefully to what she said, and I put it in the book. It was an important element, the detail was richly memorable for the person, it had to be in the book.”
Colm Tóibín (born 1955) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On a heterosexual sex scene in Brooklyn. Let's not talk about sex – why passion is waning in British books, The Guardian (16 October 2010)
“You always think that if you're going to spend seven years on a book, it should be Gravity's Rainbow or Ulysses or something, but mine is just a 200-page book that took a long time.”
Mike McCormack (born 1965) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: McKeon, Belinda. Metaphysics gets a Mayo accent, The Irish Times (13 May 2005)
“Wells surprised himself by handing her the book. "What's your name?" he asked. "So you know to whom you'll be eternally indebted?" "So I know who to blame when I'm arrested." The girl tucked the book under her arm and then extended her hand. "Clarke." "Wells," he said, reaching forward to shake it. He smiled, and this time it didn't hurt.”
Kass Morgan (born 1984) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I must tell you, sir, that yesterday the pharisaical devil was let loose, cursed me and my little book, and condemned the book to the fire. He charged me with shocking vices; with being a scorner of both Church and Sacraments, and with getting drunk daily on brandy, wine, and beer; all of which is untrue; while he himself is a drunken man.”
Jakob Böhme (1575–1624) first seen 1624 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing about Gregorius Richter, chief pastor of Görlitz, who had condemned his writings (2 April 1624), as quoted in Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence (1910), edited by Paul Deussen, Introduction
“For me, one of the most empowering outcomes of my year of climbing has been the new narrative I can tell about myself. I am no longer “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, and Wikipedian”. I am now “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, Wikipedian, and rock climber”.”
Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wadewitz, Adrianne. (August 12, 2013). "What I learned as the worst student in the class". HASTAC: Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance Collaboratory. — reprinted and cited in: "How Adrianne Wadewitz learn…