Bookish Quotes

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.

- Henry David Thoreau

Books are to be called for and supplied on the assumption that the process of reading is not a half-sleep; but in the highest sense an exercise, a gymnastic struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself.

- Walt Whitman

The mere brute pleasure of reading -- the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

- G. K. Chesterton

I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal.

- Nick Hornby

In my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.

- Lemony Snicket

Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.

- John Adams

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum--of both books and money! But especially books, for books represent infinitely more than money.

- Henry Miller

A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.

- Henry Miller

What makes a book live? A book lives through the passionate recommendation of one reader to another. Nothing can throttle this basic impulse in the human being. Despite the views of cynics and misanthropes, it is my belief that men will always strive to share their deepest experiences.

- Henry Miller

Books are one of the few things men cherish deeply. And the better the man the more easily will he part with his most cherished possessions.

- Henry Miller

One of the first things I associate with the reading of books is the struggle I waged to obtain them. Not to own them, mind you, but to lay hands on them.

- Henry Miller

I cannot live without books.

- Thomas Jefferson

Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.

- Emilie Buchwald

It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitation, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.

- Vincent Van Gogh

My books are friends that never fail me.

- Thomas Carlyle

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.

- Amos Bronson Alcott

Reading is not work, not a chore, not drudgery; reading is the most joyful thing, yet, in the world.

- James Patterson

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.

- Paul Sweeney

Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.

- Jesse Lee Bennett

A home without books is a body without soul.

- Marco Tulio Cicerón