Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Books and reading
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“After my experiences I know that it is not the disposal of books that presents the greatest difficulty to a bookseller, but the acquisition of them.”
E. V. Lucas (1868–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The books that one reads in the impressionable years, and therefore absorbs and remembers, are always so much better and more exciting than life.”
E. V. Lucas (1868–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Universities should hold up for admiration the intellectual life. For the most precious gift they have to offer is to live and work among books or in laboratories.”
Noel Annan, Baron Annan (1916–2000) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What are Universities for, Anyway?", the Richard Dimblebey Lecture on BBC TV (31 October 1972), quoted in 'Lord Annan defends universities on TV', The Times (1 November 1972), p. 3
“Bart [burning books]: So long, Johnny Tremain. Your Newberry award won't save you now!”
Esther Forbes (1891–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the time of my writing, 30 years ago, I felt the works of artists like Frida Kahlo and Dorothea Tanning were not sufficiently known or appreciated. The Bulletin provided a way of bringing these artists to the attention of a much wider audience. (about the importance of the Women's Art Register Bulletin and her own regular column ‘A Look At Books’ in it)”
Pat Hillcoat (1935–2022) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Caroline Phillips for the Women's Art Register Bulletin Issue 63 - Dec 2018
“I had published six books already with Cambridge.”
Karen Dawisha (1949–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t get why these kids think they’re the first. There’s a lacking in historical referencing and reverencing. Their art doesn’t take any risks. It doesn’t love itself. It doesn’t love people. It’s only interested in power; not even power, it’s all vanity. And I don’t think people are looking at books enough.”
Tracey Rose (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My favourite genre remains the short story, although it is the most difficult because one has to be able to say so much with so few words. Writing books is much more difficult than for the radio, but with the radio story you work at a pace again and you simply have to write every day.”
Dricky Beukes (1918–1999) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ATKV|LitNet-Skrywersalbum, Dricky Beukes (1918–1999). 2017-04-06, Erika Terblanche. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
“I grew up in Asmara, as a kid I was very quiet and silent and very active at school, I remember how scoring low marks would leave me disappointed so to prevent this I was always stuck with my books aiming to score high marks. I was a member of the volleyball team at school; I actually loved this sport so I played till high school but later I totally dropped it off.”
Mereb Estifanos (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each of my books is a step towards the understanding of the North African identity and an attempt to enter modernity.”
Assia Djebar (1936–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reliving some things such as my dad's passing,was difficult,but writing was cathartic. I am no longer that person I describe in the books,I am proof that indeed you can turn the negative into positives”
Pamela Nomvete (born 1964) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Generations' Ntsiki spills the beans,25 Jan 2013,Admin
“Till the publication of 's Guide to the Eastern Alps in 1868, and the appearance of Messrs. Gilbert and Churchill's joint volume in 1864,—the was scarcely known even by name to any but scientific travellers. A few geologists found their way now and then to ; a few artists, attracted in the first instance to as the birthplace of , carried their sketch-books up the ; but there it ended.”
Amelia Edwards (1831–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By Charing Cross in London Town There runs a road of high renown, Where antique books are ranged on shelves As dark and dusty as themselves. And many booklovers have spent Their substance there with great content, And vexed their wives and filled their homes With faded prints and massive tomes.”
Norman Davey (1888–1949) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Booklover", in Punch, vol. 150 (June 21, 1916), p. 414
“Every man waits his destined hour; even the cities are doomed to their fate. Let us spend our leisure with our books, which will take our minds off these troubles, and will teach us to despise what many people desire.”
Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) first seen 1430 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Niccolò de' Niccoli, Rome, 3 September 1430 (tr. P. W. G. Gordan, 1974)
“Glorious with the hues of the , a living gem of colour that seems strangely out of place beside our quiet English rivers and babbling streams, the kingfisher is well and aptly names, for it is indeed clad in royal robes, a very king of birds and a prince of fishers. There is no bird on the to compare with it for brilliance of colouring, but of its hues bird-books give us little idea.”
Frances Pitt (1888–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In fifty years' time, books such as The Force of Reason will be viewed with the same horror with which we view Mein Kampf today, and we will wonder how it was possible.”
Massimo Fini (born 1943) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: La missione di Oriana: americanizzare tutti, Il Gazzettino (April 9, 2004)
“Fallaci is a great journalist for the same reason she is a mediocre novelist. She is an enormous, protruding uterus that embraces a wide swath of reality. But what she gains in breadth when she writes articles, she loses in depth when she writes books.”
Massimo Fini (born 1943) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bocciare Busi non è uno scandalo, massimofini.it, 1990
“What a happy woman I am, living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and burying, and I don't what besides, and would rend the air with their shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I fell as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily.”
Elizabeth von Arnim (1866–1941) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (175 pages; 1st edition published in 1898 by in London)
“As a writer, I still strongly identify as a worker, partially as a consequence of working with those other people [the co-editors of her first two books] and partially as a result of my class background. I see my work emerging from some kind of imaginative collectivity, not from solitary genesis.”
Valerie Miner (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The love of experiment was very strong in him, and I can remember the way he would say, "I shan't be easy till I have tried it," as if an outside force were driving him. He enjoyed experimenting much more than work which only entailed reasoning, and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argument and the marshalling of facts, he felt experimental work to be a rest or holiday.”
Francis Darwin (1848–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unheralded unsung she is, In all seven books of Ramayana For the poet in me, Sati she is, Even greater than Sita in purity.”
Haldhar Nag (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To allow unionisation is also to engage them. “Ensure wages are not too low. If you’re making profits, the workers should benefit. If you’re not, you put your books on the table.”
Femi Falana (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm always writing essays—eight hundred words on owning a for a newspaper in London, my ten favorite books of the year for a magazine in Australia, an introduction for a newly reissued classic, maybe a little piece about dogs. Essays never filled my days, but they reminded me that I was still a writer when I wasn't writing a novel.”
Ann Patchett (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know that God can, if He will, supply them with His internal directions and inspirations, but we must not so rely on that (at least, thereby we deceive ourselves, as we were likely to do) that we neglect the having and preserving of good books, by which also God useth to speak unto us, and to teach us.”
David Augustine Baker (1575–1641) said by 1641 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The s whom we admire to-day do not appear to love their s, and the s who appraise their books show no signs of doing so either. For a writer or critic to show delight in a character would would seem to-day rather naïve, an old-fashioned response left over from the days of Dickens and Surtees. Characters, it seems, are no longer objects of affection.”
Bernard Bergonzi (1929–2016) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (249 pages; 1st edition 1970)
“The Gospel, in fact, inspires the historical action of Christians, but it is in history itself that it becomes understandable. The ethos is not given once and for all, it is not handed down from above or contained in books, but is constantly elaborated in history, in the journey made alongside and together with other people. (I, 5)”
Enzo Bianchi (1943–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Censorship, which is a relic from the days of slavery, enslaves writers, painters, and filmmakers. It does not allow us to publish our books in an organic way…I am saddened for myself and my fellow writers who are embattled with a group of narrow-minded, self-absorbed people with underdeveloped principles, who still think they can create the world in their own image.”
Moniro Ravanipour (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was lying on the bed fully clothed and thinking about the fact that there were various pieces of furniture, books, and pictures hanging here, but it all made no sense. I'm lying here too and I don't make sense either.”
Tadeusz Różewicz (1921–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No fairy tales now, no books now,”
Oleg Medvedev (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“became a and a in an age when books appeared to have the potential to change the world. Between 1760 and 1809, the years of Johnson's adulthood, Britain experienced a during which nothing was certain and everything seemed possible. On paper charted the evolution of Britain's relationship first with America and then with Europe: several were intimately involved in the struggles that reformed the .”
“It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.”
Carolyn Wells (1862–1942) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Rest of My Life (1937) "Libraries at Large", p. 199
“I was lucky enough to be mentored by Dr. Botha de Meillon, the doyen of African Anopheles mosquitoes and author of several books on the topic, who encouraged me to embark on post-graduate studies at Wits University.”
Maureen Coetzee (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was a girl full of smartness who let books alone and studied men and women a good deal … I have always noticed that when I have something to say, people listen. They never go to sleep on me.”
Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Triumph and Travails of Mary Ellen Pleasant April 1, 2021
“I was always drawn to puzzles and captivated by mathematical thinking and trying to understand how things work. When I was little there were Magic School Bus books with information bubbles.”
Ranthony Edmonds wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My interest in mathematics was sparked and sustained in high school not by courses per se but by a number of well written, engaging books aimed at readers with a high school mathematics background.”
“There was not a set of books, I couldn’t join a program, or take a class in any of this stuff so we built our own tools. We came up with our own systems for identifying vulnerability and building resiliency and it grew into an industry.”
Window Snyder (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm not a magician, but I don't think it all happened that night; outbursts only happen in comic books. You don't become a wolf overnight.”
Paolo Crepet (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As with men, it has always seemed to me that books have their own peculiar destinies. They go towards the people who are waiting for them and reach them at the right moment. They are made of living material and continue to cast light through the darkness long after the death of their authors.”
Miguel Serrano (1917–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the pavamāna collection consists primarily of late authors, those from Books 1, 5, 8 and in a limited number of cases, 10.”
Theodore Proferes first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (PROFERES 1999:69).
“We need not rely exclusively on the Anukramaṇī to affirm that there were important interactions between the priestly groups represented in Books 1, 5 and 8. As Oldenberg [1888b:213-215] has shown, evidence from the hymns themselves supports this conclusion.”
Theodore Proferes first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (PROFERES 1999:75).
“These circles are represented by the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa authors from Books 1, 5 and 8, as well as by descendants of these authors.”
Theodore Proferes first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (PROFERES 2003:16).
“the breakdown of the strict separation of the ritual poetry of different clans and the preservation of that poetry together in a single collection began with the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa poets of Books 1, 5 and 8.”
Theodore Proferes first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (PROFERES 2003:18).
“We help writers and musicians distribute and monetise their books, audiobooks, songs and music videos across over 400 digital stores worldwide at no charge.”
Chidi Nwaogu (born 1990) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Faces are as legible as books, with this difference in their favor, that they may be perused in much less time than printed pages, and are less liable to be misunderstood.”
Frederick Saunders (librarian) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This miserable habit of our times is vividly illustrated by the manner in which those next most sacred things to mortals, books, are treated.”
Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871) said by 1871 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm not in this because I want to be in the history books as someone who was the first. That matters, and it matters to a lot of people. But what really matters to me is that I not be the last.”
Raquel Montoya-Lewis (born 1968) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: taken from an article by PBS, 10 November 2020
“To look through the 16-inch telescope at Jupiter was literally life-changing for me. I just remember thinking that Jupiter actually looks like it does in the books—spot, bands, albeit in more of a gray scale.”
Dara Norman wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“E-books now have all the potential to grow Human beings have always loved being told beautiful stories, more entertaining than their daily lives.”
Viviana Zocco wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each one focuses on a different part of the puzzle. For example, with the ‘Books Over Boys’ campaign and booklet, girls learn about the value of education and how unplanned pregnancy can disrupt their dreams.”
Raquel Kasham Daniel wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You would find me providing sanitary pads for girls to enable them stay in school or providing free books to children in and out of school to inspire them to either get enrolled or complete their education.”
Raquel Kasham Daniel wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source