This Is A Book Quotes

My father was a tyrant about reading, and that put me off books when I was little.

Poets are never allowed to be mediocre by the gods, by men or by publishers.

Books have their destinies.

Had I the power, I would scatter libraries over the whole land as the sower sows his wheatfield.

A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.

Give me a house furnished with books rather than furniture! Both, if you can, but books at any rate!

Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.

First publication is a pure, carnal leap into that dark which one dreams is life.

I've admired Bill Kauffman's books for years . . . appealing, elegantly written, and entirely American.

'Til 1983, I wrote primarily for other psychologists and expected that they would be the principal audience for my book.

Anyt hing that is found to stimulate hope should be seized upon and make to serve. This applies to a book, a film, a broadcast, or a conversation with someone who can impart it.

Whether it's from the books or the films, there are some people that will have a very fixed idea in their head. You're not going to match that. At a certain point, you have to accept that.

It's a natural thing for people to say, you know, Who's in this book? I find myself get ting a little defensive. People come along and I'm waiting for that first question.

Joseph Smith could not have picked a better year to start The Book of Mormon than 600 B.C.

Books seek us out. They slip themselves into our hands just at the time we are ready for a new self-concept.

I cry at the end of every book.

I was kind of relieved with the way the book [The Proud Highway] came out. It's beyond an autobiography or a biography. I never knew what was going to come up next.

I wouldn't like to be a character in one of my books!

I still have some of my old University essays, and I do still have my drawing book from primary year seven.

Dead Air' is full of rants; it's a rant-based book. Yes, it's self-indulgence. I plead guilty; mea culpa.

I don't really do themes. I might accidentally, but themes are an emergent phenomena of the writing of the book, of just trying to get a story out there.

The dream book is always the next book.

It's important to over-deliver on the quality of the books as far as depth and content. It's not worth it to cut out 50 pages just because it would be a little bit cheaper.

I've already worked on at least a dozen dream books. I'm definitely not starving for something, like, "Agh, if only!" It's the opposite.

I am an author, and like many in my profession, I am also a traveling salesman, going all over in an attempt to persuade people to spend twenty-five dollars on a hardcover book by me.

A book tour is not a good opportunity to let your mind wander. You have to pay attention, remember salespeople's and interviewers' names, succinctly summarize your book in a 'selling' way, and so on.

I like to think that each book I start is a completely new departure But I’ve learned that whatever you do, readers will have no difficulty assimilating it into what you’ve done before.

I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books.

I feel like I got a whole lot of living to do before I think about summing it up in a book.

My problem is that I never get through the whole book. I skim through this one, that one, and then the other one.

What is the task of the translator? I think the task depends on the book and on the translator.

I suppose anyone who has ever written a travel book has had the experience of being accosted by a reader with blood in his eye and a lawsuit in his voice.

What’s the deal with the hair?” Curran tore his gaze from the book and grimaced. “Grows every flare. Can’t help it." We stared at each other. “Waiting for the Fabio joke,” he said.

I got a dog-training book. It says Grendel needs mental stimulation, so I tried to train him, but I think he must be retarded.

It’s as much a writer’s concern, who is responsible to his readers for all the books written before him as well as those which will be written after him.

At the age of thirty-five, I have just begun to become the kind of person who could understand the kind of book I would want to write.

You know what I love about Haruki Murakami's books? He's so easy to read. You get three pages in and you have to finish the whole thing.

I have to finish this book tour of almost 30 cities.

After the children grew up, I began to focus on my writing. My first books were part of a trilogy... The 'Wind Dance' trilogy.

any writer is inevitably going to work with his own anxieties and desires. If the book is any good it has got to have in it the fire of a personal unconscious mind.

When I go to places and do book tours, I don't really like doing traditional bookshops. It's nice to walk people through something instead of just standing up in a bookstore.

I think [Ecstasy] was a really good stab. It wasn't my strongest book or my strongest material, but they wanted to make a kinda "rave culture" movie.

Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have.

Art is amoral; so is life. For me there are no obscene pictures or books; there are only poorly conceived and poorly executed ones.

There's detailed information on how to assemble a nuclear weapon from parts. There's books about how to build a nuclear bomb.

My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have

If a book has no index or good table of contents, it is very useful to make one as you are reading it.

When I feel difficulty coming on, I switch to another book I'm writing. When I get back to the problem, my unconscious has solved it.

It's rare that I read more than two or three books by any one author, usually only one.

At books, or work, or healthy play, Let all my years be passed; That I may give for every day A good account at last.