Inspiring Books Quotes

1. "I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity. Books are unconvertible assets, to be passed on only to those who possess them already."
Author: Anthony Powell

2. "You told me trees could speak and the only reason one heard silence in the forestwas that they had all been born knowing different languages.That night I went into the forestto bury dictionaries under roots,so many books in so many tonguesas to insure speech.and now this very moment,the forest seems alivewith whispers and murmurs and rumblings of soundwind-rushed into my ears.I do not speak any languagethat crosses the silence around mebut how soothing to knowthat the yearning and grasping embodiedin trees' convoluted and startling shapesis finally being fulfilledin their wind shouts to each other.Yet we who both speak Englishand have since we were bornare moving ever farther aparteven as branch tips touch."
Author: Carol Goodman

3. "I'll think about something else. I'll just sit quietly. If I could sit still. If I could sit still, maybe I could read. Oh, all the books are about people who love each other, truly and sweetly. What do they want to write about that for? Don't they know it isn't true? Don't they know it's a lie, it's a God-damned lie? What do they have to tell about that for, when they know how it hurts?"
Author: Dorothy Parker

4. "Books turn people into isolated individuals, and once that's happened, the road only grows rockier. Books wire you to want to be Steve McQueen, but the world wants you to be [email protected]."
Author: Douglas Coupland

5. "Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive, and very limited way."
Author: Flannery O'Connor

6. "A library of mostly unread books is far more inspiring than a library of books already read. There's nothing more exciting than finishing a book, and walking over to your shelves to figure out what you're going to read next."[The Wonderful and Terrible Habit of Buying Too Many Books, PWxyz (news blog of Publishers Weekly), February 16th, 2012]"
Author: Gabe Habash

7. "It is nice that nobody writes as they talk and that the printed language is different from the spoken otherwise you could not lose yourself in books and of course you do you completely do."
Author: Gertrude Stein

8. "He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of gray house with sad brown doors. (Lee 164)"
Author: Harper Lee

9. "Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please."
Author: Hugh MacLeod

10. "I don't think it had ever occurred to me that man's supremacy is not primarily due to his brain, as most of the books would have one think. It is due to the brain's capacity to make use of the information conveyed to it by a narrow band of visible light rays. His civilization, all that he had achieved or might achieve, hung upon his ability to perceive that range of vibrations from red to violet. Without that, he was lost."
Author: John Wyndham

11. "I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart."
Author: Mary Oliver

12. "And it would be a spare life he would be certain to lead as a schoolteacher in some urban location. But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by."
Author: Michael Ondaatje

13. "All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them."
Author: Mortimer J. Adler

14. "I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody."
Author: Pearl S. Buck

15. "The faint aroma of gum and calico that hangs about a library is as the fragrance of incense to me. I think the most beautiful sight is the gilt-edged backs of a row of books on a shelf. The alley between two well-stocked shelves in a hall fills me with the same delight as passing through a silent avenue of trees. The colour of a binding-cloth and its smooth texture gives me the same pleasure as touching a flower on its stalk. A good library hall has an atmosphere which elates. I have seen one or two University Libraries that have the same atmosphere as a chapel, with large windows, great trees outside, and glass doors sliding on noiseless hinges."
Author: R.K. Narayan

16. "Olga sits on the carpet in front of her shelves with stacks of books scattered around her, struggling to pick between her old favorites. She's all bent over, like a puppet without a hand inside it."
Author: Sarah Miller

17. "When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become--whether lawyer, scientist, artist, or leader in any realm--her goal remains abstract. Such models as appear in books or on the news, however inspiring or revered, are ultimately too remote to be real, let alone influential. But a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, 'Yes, someone like me can do this."
Author: Sonia Sotomayor

18. "A skilled teacher and a few good books can always cure ignorance."
Author: Vikrant Parsai

19. "Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome."
Author: William Ewart Gladstone

Inspiring Books Quotes Pictures