Book Quotes - Page 9

I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect

Turn off your radio. Put away your daily paper. Read one review of events a week and spend some time reading good books. They tell too of days of striving and of strife. They are of other centuries and also of our own. They make us realize that all times are perilous, that men live in a dangerous world, in peril constantly of losing or maiming soul and body. We get some sense of perspective reading such books. Renewed courage and faith and even joy to live.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.

I do so hate finishing books. I would like to go on with them for years.

Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.

So I be written in the Book of Love. I do not care about that Book Above. Erase my name, or write it as you will. So I be written in the Book of Love.

I am very happy to be alive. There is much fun to be had. Music, movies, books, paintings, drawingsI hope you have these things where you are. If you have them, what does the real world matter anyway?

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch.

Their women are of surpassing beauty, and are shown more respect than the men. These people are Muslims, punctilious in observing the hours of prayer, studying the books of law, and memorizing the Koran. Yet their women show no bashfulness before men and do not veil themselves, though they are assiduous in attending prayers. Any man who wishes to marry one of them may do so, but they do not travel with their husbands, and, even if one desired to do so, her family would not allow her to go. The women have their 'friends' and 'companions' amongst the men outside their own families.

The truly wise man is he who believes the Bible against the opinions of any man. If the Bible says one thing, and any body of men says another, the wise man will decide, "This book is the Word of him who cannot lie".

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.

Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.

The copycat effects of media violence, similar to those previously attributed to westerns, radio serials and comic books, are easy to exaggerate.

I always thought the joy of reading a book is not knowing what happens next. (Leonard Shelby, Memento)

Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter's prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes' excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (1926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud.

In Great Britain, an author published a book in which he claimed that Jesus Christ had children. Such statements don't trigger civil unrest and bloodshed in Europe. But write similar statements about Islam in Syria and you might see bloody uprisings.

The book of Revelation says that we no longer need the sun or the moon, for Christ is the light of the world.

Friendship with the wise gets better with time, as a good book gets better with age.

You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights. I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.