Book Quotes - Page 402

Throughout my childhood, my parents dropped me off at a multitude of therapists' offices in hopes that I'd avoid growing up to be the kind of asshole who writes books about them. Also because it was sometimes easier than finding a nanny.

The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying.

I grew up with a mother who, every time she saw something, would say, I'm going to look that up. And I've become that person - I've become the reference-book person.

Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way?

Cripes Miss Wilcox, they're not guns,' I said. No, they're not Mattie, they're books. And a hundred times more dangerous.

But maybe the Charm Bracelets understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing, I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar.

Dyan Favre, Brett's nephew, is also a gem. Not just a favorite person from the book - a favorite person, period. I actually wound up writing this about him. Simply a good, righteous man.

Well, Thanksgiving we'll all gather at my house for dinner and we usually do Christmas at Beau's house. My mom is still feisty and kicking. She's 92. I saw her last night and she published a book at 90. It's a wonderful book called "You Caught Me Kissing" and it's basically love-poems that she wrote for my dad. It's more than that, it's a wonderful book.

The Internet is disrupting every media industry...people can complain about that, but complaining is not a strategy. And Amazon is not happening to book selling, the future is happening to book selling.

There's a whole generation growing up thinking you shouldn't seek knowledge for its own sake, and that theatre and art and books are activities that you do after-hours, rather than things that are at the heart of life. That's a huge change.

Some people are happy when they are at the sea; I'm happy when I'm standing in front of a shelf of books. It feels like the known place and also the beginning of a new adventure. It has that simultaneous paradoxical effect of making me feel absolutely calm and very excited.

You're never alone with a book, are you? It's a dialogue.

Six books… my mother didn’t want books falling into my hands. It never occurred to her that I fell into the books – that I put myself inside them for safe keeping.

In my subconscious, my books were part of a single emotional journey.

There is no book of mine that I reject. That does not mean that I find them good.

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.

Let the trumpet of the day of judgment sound when it will, I shall appear with this book in my hand before the Sovereign Judge, and cry with a loud voice, This is my work, there were my thoughts, and thus was I. I have freely told both the good and the bad, have hid nothing wicked, added nothing good.

The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to.

She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.

There is a new book out about Hillary Clinton that claims Bill is still having affairs but Hillary continues to look the other way. The only problem is when Hillary does look the other way Bill's having sex with a women over there too.

I take a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, reopen the book, and read the words scribbled in red ink near the top: Everyone needs an olly-olly-oxen-free.

Growing up where I did, you met a lot of colorful characters whose business was on the other side of the law, or more likely you didn't know what they were up to, and you never would. So playing those kinds of characters now, I can draw on that. The rest of it, you can practice or learn from books. But mostly, I draw from my experiences. That's all I have, you know.

I just loved the power of positive thinking, letting yourself go.

Bookstores will not disappear but will exploit digital technologies to increase their virtual and physical inventories, and perhaps become publishers themselves.

A book can open the mind, free the heart, and speak to the soul.