Quotes

“Critics are inclined to think, and have always been inclined to think, that if a poet is popular he must be bad.” – Maurice Baring, Lost Lectures

“Charity, of course, is what the writer supports himself with while he is finishing his novel. Hope is the virtue by which he firmly trusts that someday, somewhere, somebody will publish his novel. But it is in the virtue of faith that the writer grounds himself or herself in the true religious experience of literature.” – William Kennedy, Why It Took So Long

“All you can read, will be of little use, if you do not think and reason upon yourself. One reads to know other people’s thoughts.” – Philip Stanhope

“Eveything in the world exists in order that it may end up in a book.” – Randall Short, New York Times

“If used right, books…do not have to be a substitute for our own creative activity.” – Pete Seeger

“Books bring with them detachment and a critical attitude that is not possible in a society dependent on the spoken word.” – David Riesman, Oral Tradition, Written Word, Screen Image

“Persistent readers of novels will usually confess that what began as a passion tends to end as a habit.”

“There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don’t understand them: sold by people who don’t understand them: bound, criticized, and read by people who don’t understand them: and now even written by people who don’t understand them.” – George Christopher Lictenberg, The Notebook

“Books do not make life easier or more simple, but harder and more interesting.” – Harry Golden

“I like rereading books, too. I don’t trust folk who don’t reread…What you’ve got to teach people is to read slowly.” – Robert Frost