Book Quotes - Page 82

One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

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.

My whole outlook on life is, never judge a book by its cover.

I get over a hundred letters a day from all over the world, from children and parents, and it's a wonder I ever have time to write books, let alone speak!

They work now with computers for building buildings and books, but not ever with new ideas.

Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?

Students will read if we give them the books, the time, and the enthusiastic encouragement to do so. If we make them wait for the one unit a year in which they are allowed to choose their own books and become readers, they may never read at all. To keep our students reading, we have to let them.

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.

We human beings build houses because we're alive but we write books because we're mortal. We live in groups because we're sociable but we read because we know we're alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no one's place but that no one can replace either. It offers no definitive explanation of our destiny but links us inextricably to life. Its tiny secret links remind us of how paradoxically happy we are to be alive while illuminating how tragically absurd life is.

There are plenty of laws to protect guys' money even in war time but there's nothing on the books says a man's life's his own.

Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today.

What irritates me is the bland way people go around saying, 'Oh, our attitude has changed. We don't dislike these people any more.' But by the strangest coincidence, they haven't taken away the injustice; the laws are still on the books.

However, to modify a habit, you must decide to change it. You must consiously accept the hard work of identifying the cues and rewards that drive the habits' routines, and find alternatives. You must know you have control and be self-conscious enough to use it -- and every chapter in this book is devoted to illustrating a different aspect of why that control is real.

Before bed, I read a book or flip on the radio - I'm not picky, I'll just turn it on and see what comes up. I burn a yummy lavender- scented candle.

Beware the man of the single book

But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

The Christians and the Jews do not believe that the Bible is the verbatim words of God. In fact it is clear that the books of the Bible are written by men - allegedly inspired men - but humans nonetheless. God in the Bible is spoken of in third person. This gives the believer a degree of caution. If the writers of the Bible were humans and humans are fallible, the Bible should not be taken literally. It is possible to interpret it, use one's logic to understand it in the light of science and adapt its teachings to meet the needs of the time.

Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.

No matter what the shrinks, or the pundits, or the self-help books tell you, when it comes to love, it's luck.

I remember when I first started being in magazines, I had pretty thin skin. I was this nerd that read books and stayed home and didn't go out.

Feed the growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year to year he shows a natural craving, and he will develop in adult life a sounder sort of mental tissue, even though he may seem to be 'wasting' a great deal of his growing time, in the eyes of those for whom the only channels of learning are books and verbally communicated information.

...how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.

When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.