Quotes about books
Welcome to our Books collection, a sanctuary of stories, knowledge, and the boundless worlds that come alive through the written word. In this curated compilation of quotes, we dive into the captivating realm of books, celebrating their power to transport, inspire, and expand the horizons of our imagination.
Books are more than pages; they are portals to distant lands, windows into the human experience, and vessels of wisdom passed down through generations. Our Books quotes honor the authors who weave tales, the characters who become companions, and the endless curiosity that drives us to explore through literature.
Whether you're a voracious reader, an explorer of different genres, or simply captivated by the magic of storytelling, these quotes offer insights into the transformative impact of books on our minds and hearts.
Embark on a journey that delves into the genres that shape cultures, the lessons that emerge from the written word, and the connections that form between readers and the authors who touch their lives. Discover the joy of losing yourself in a story, the inspiration drawn from written thoughts, and the timeless appeal of books as gateways to imagination.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterOf all man’s instruments, the most wondrous, no doubt, is the book. The other instruments are extensions of his body. The microscope, the telescope, are extensions of his sight; the telephone is the extension of his voice; then we have the plow and the sword, extensions of the arm. But the book is something else altogether: the book is an extension of memory and imagination.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsA library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
Mary Ellen Chase
— New England's Literary VoiceThere is no substitute for books in the life of a child.
Daniel Craig
— Iconic James Bond ActorThe character I play has all these revolutionary ideas. I think the classic thing is that majority people who are criticising it probably have never read the books, and need to. And I'm sure that the Catholic Church, which is being directed as you know, can handle it.
Neil Patrick Harris
— American actor, singer, writer, producer, and television hostI often feel like books find us for reasons, and we read them when we need them the most.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
— Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalistMost critics don't realize that a novel like One Hundred Years of Solitude is a bit of a joke, full of signals to close friends; and so, with some pre-ordained right to pontificate they take on the responsibility of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of themselves.
Ian Fleming
— British writer, journalist and naval intelligence officerI was just on the edge of getting married, and I was frenzied at the prospect of this great step in my life after having been a bachelor for so long. And I really wanted to take my mind off of the agony, and so I decided to sit down and write a book.
Jessica Bird
— American novelistAn Active mind didn't need distraction in its physical environment. It needed a collection of outstanding books and a good lamp. Maybe some cheese and crackers.
Gabrielle Bernstein
— New York Times Bestselling author, motivational speaker, spiritual leader, and podcast hostMost people don't walk around the tools to process pain and fear, that kind of discomfort. In most cases, it's unbearable to look at it, feel it, and/or address it. It's why I'm such a fan of self-help books.
Julie Andrews
— English actress, singer, and authorSadly I don't sing. I missed it for a long time, but my daughter Emma said something wonderful when I was feeling blue one day: "Mom, you've just found a different way of using your voice, and that's with your books." In a way, she's right. It's just a different way of expressing what I feel about music, individuality, art and all the things I've always loved.
Brian Jacques
— English novelistI love book signings: kids waiting in line for you to scribble on their new books, haha!
A Fine Frenzy
— American singer, songwriter, actress, and music video directorI wasn't a very outgoing child. I read a lot of books and the characters in each of the books became like imaginary friends - I immersed myself in the different worlds. I always hated finishing books that I really loved for that reason.
Gianni Versace
— Italian fashion designer, socialite and businessmanMy only dream is to get old and finally have time to read all the books that I'm collecting.
A. S. Byatt
— English NovelistWhen I was a child - in wartime, pre-television - books were my life.
Chuck Palahniuk
— American NovelistA good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart.
Charles Caleb Colton
— English WriterNext to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
Abraham Lincoln
— American PresidentThe things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
Bill Blass
— American fashion designerReading has given me more satisfaction than really anything else.
Kathryn Stockett
— NovelistGreat books give you a feeling that you miss all day, until you finally get to crawl back inside those pages again.
Joyce Carol Oates
— AuthorWhen people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterThe fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsBooks are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people-- people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
— Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalistIn the end all books are written for your friends. The problem after writing One Hundred Years of Solitude was that now I no longer know whom of the millions of readers I am writing for; this upsets and inhibits me. It's like a million eyes are looking at you and you don't really know what they think.
Charles Caleb Colton
— English WriterBooks, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.
Joyce Carol Oates
— AuthorI remember once asking Grandma about a book she was reading, a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and how she answered me: this was the first conversation of my life that concerned a book, and 'the life of the mind' - and now, such subjects have become my life.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterI believe books will never disappear. It is impossible for it to happen. Of all man's diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astounding are his books... If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would man.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsAll that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
Joyce Carol Oates
— AuthorThe books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterWhen writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsBooks hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together-just the two of you.
Joyce Carol Oates
— AuthorI am always reading or thinking about reading.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterI cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsWalden is the only book I own, although there are some others unclaimed on my shelves. Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this is mine. It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest, and I keep it about me in much the same way one carries a handkerchief - for relief in moments of defluxion or despair.
Joyce Carol Oates
— AuthorI read books. Avidly, ardently! As if my life depended upon it.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterLet others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I'd rather boast about the ones I've read.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsA library is many things, but particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books... Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterA book is a physical object in a world of physical objects. It is a set of dead symbols. And then the right reader comes along, and the words—or rather the poetry behind the words, for the words themselves are mere symbols—spring to life, and we have a resurrection of the word.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsA library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books---the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterMy books standing there on the shelf do not know that I have written them.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsMuch of our adult morality, in books and out of them, has a stuffiness unworthy of childhood. Our grown-up conclusions often rest on perilously soft bottom.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterWriting long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.
E. B. White
— Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved ClassicsA library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there in a book, you may have your question answered
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterA book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterI have always come to life after coming to books.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterA book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterLiterature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterI know of a wild region whose librarians repudiate the vain superstitious custom of seeking any sense in books and compare it to looking for meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's hands . . . They admit that the inventors of writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but they maintain that this application is accidental and that books in themselves mean nothing. This opinion - we shall see - is not altogether false.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterLiterature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterMy father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I think in terms of the books I read.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterAs a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterLeaving behind the babble of the plaza, I enter the Library. I feel, almost physically, the gravitation of the books, the enveloping serenity of order, time magically dessicated and preserved.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterI know of one semibarbarous zone whose librarians repudiate the "vain and superstitious habit" of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines on the palms of one's hand.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterI can’t talk about my books. I have written them and tried to forget them. I have written once, and readers have read me many times, no? I try to think of what I wrote, it’s very unhealthy to think about the past, the case of elegies is very sad, as much as the case of complaints.
Jorge Luis Borges
— WriterThe exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to construct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished by the passage of time.