Book Quotes - Page 307

Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

A book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written.

Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . .

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.

Few children learn to read books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; Someone has to show them the way.

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.

My favourite all-time work of fiction: Lord of the Rings. My favourite all-time nonfiction book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ask me again next week, you'll get a different answer.

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books.

I remember once I read a book on mental illness and there was a nurse that had gotten sick. Do you know what she died from? From worrying about the mental patients not being able to get their food. She became a mental patient.

The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember of them, but from their suggestiveness, their character-building power.

If someone considers the prophetic writings with all the diligence and reverence they are worth, while he reads and examines with great care, it is certain that in that very act he will be struck in his mind and senses by some more divine breath and will recognize that the books he reads have not been produced in a human way, but are words of God.

The only other thing which I think is important is: Don't write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way.

There are good books and there are bad books, period, that's the distinction.

The tremendous efficiency and economy of the book has once again demonstrated itself. It's the world's most patient medium.

When I read it ["Tough Guys Don't Dance"], I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.

When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books.

The way a book is read, which is to say, the qualities a reader brings to a book can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it.

Why do people write books that say it's better to be older than to be younger? It's not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you're constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday.

Madame Bovary is the sexiest book imaginable. The woman's virtually a nyphomaniac but you won't find a vulgar word in the entire thing.

I have a giant baking book, so I close my eyes and pick a random page. Whatever it is, I try to bake it!

This book was not written because I wanted to offer a supreme model to the man who struggles; I wanted to show him that he must not fear pain, temptation or death - because all three can be conquered, all three have already been conquered. Christ suffered pain, and since then pain has been sanctified. Temptation fought until the very last moment to lead him astray, and Temptation was defeated. Christ died on the Cross, and at that instant death was vanquished forever.

Currently I am working on another three books, doing a lot of magazine work, am shooting for fifteen stock agencies, plus my own photo library - all this keeps me quite busy!