Quotes on “books”

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.

Books are the most wonderful friends in the world. When you meet them and pick them up, they are always ready to give you a few ideas. When you put them down, they never get mad; when you take them up again, they seem to enrich you all the more.

She just smiled, said that she loved books more than anything, and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.

We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.

I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.

She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself.

An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Literature is news that stays news.

There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

All good and true book-lovers practice the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed ... No book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.