Book Quotes

 

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The primary duty of literature is to tell us the truth about ourselves by telling us lies about people who never existed

— Stephen King

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The novel is an event in consciousness. Our aim isn’t to copy actuality, but to modify and recreate our sense of it. The novelist is inviting the reader to watch a performance in his own brain.

— George Buchanan

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Even today I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book in which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch. Reading is the most rewarding form of exile and the necessary discipline for a novelist who burns with ambition to get better.

— Pat Conroy, My Reading Life

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For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on Earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfold world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and how to die. They are full of all the things you don’t get in real life… and quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of the day but we rarely let ourselves stop and pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded.

— Anne Lamotte in Bird by Bird
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All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. … But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.

— Nick Hornby ❝

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

— Oscar Wilde
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When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before

—
Cliff Fadiman

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Reading requires an act of empathy, really. What you’re doing when you’re reading a book is saying, I’m going to turn off who I am for a little bit, and I’m going to enter the personality of another human being. Reading is a very generous act, but it’s a very helpful act if you really want to understand what another person is like.

— Gary Shteyngart
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.
dividedreality:
-Hector
The History Boys, Alan Bennett