Bibliophile Quotes

“If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.”
― Anne Fadiman

“I grabbed my book and opened it up.

I wanted to smell it.

Heck, I wanted to kiss it.

Yes, kiss it.

That's right, I am a book kisser.

Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds.”
― Shannon Hale, The Goose Girl

“The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“There is nothing like the smell of books, both new and old. If someone ever bottled the smell, I would be all over it .”
― Tiffany King, Meant to Be

“I took my time, running my fingers along the spines of books, stopping to pull a title from the shelf and inspect it. A sense of well-being flowed through me as I circled the ground floor. It was better than meditation or a new pair of shoes- or even chocolate. My life was a disaster, but there were still books. Lots and lots of books. A refuge. A solace. Each one offering the possibility of a new beginning.”
― Beth Pattillo, Jane Austen Ruined My Life

“We lusty bibliophiles know that reading, unlike just about anything else, is both good for you and loads of fun.”
― Kevin Smokler, Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times: A Collection of All Original Essays from Today's (and Tomorrow's) Young Authors on the State of the Art -- ... Hustle -- in the Age of Information Overload

“What's a horizon?' Lazlo asked, straight-faced. 'Is it like the end of an aisle of books?”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.”
― Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels

“Still. Four words.

And I didn’t realize it until a couple of days ago, when someone wrote in to my blog:

Dear Neil,

If you could choose a quote - either by you or another author - to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children’s area, what would it be?

Thanks!

Lynn

I pondered a bit. I’d said a lot about books and kids’ reading over the years, and other people had said things pithier and wiser than I ever could. And then it hit me, and this is what I wrote:

I’m not sure I’d put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface. I think I’d just remind people of the power of stories, and why they exist in the first place. I’d put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear. The ones that show that it’s working, and that pages will be turned:

“… and then w”
― Neil Gaiman, Stories: All-New Tales

“In reading, friendship is restored immediately to its original purity. With books there is no forced sociability. If we pass the evening with those friends—books—it’s because we really want to. When we leave them, we do so with regret and, when we have left them, there are none of those thoughts that spoil friendship: “What did they think of us?”—“Did we make a mistake and say something tactless?”—“Did they like us?”—nor is there the anxiety of being forgotten because of displacement by someone else. All such agitating thoughts expire as we enter the pure and calm friendship of reading.”
― Marcel Proust

“Shara was already an avid reader by then, but she had never realized until that moment what books meant, the possibility they presented: you could protect them forever, store them up like engineers store water, endless resources of time and knowledge snared in ink, tied down to paper, layered on shelves.... Moments made physical, untouchable, perfect, like preserving a dead hornet in crystal, one drop of venom forever hanging from its stinger.
She felt overwhelmed. It was--she briefly thinks of herself and Vo, reading together in the library--a lot like being in love for the first time.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

“Never before had I felt trapped, so seduced and caught up in a story,' Clara explained, 'the way I did with that book. Until then, reading was just a duty, a sort of fine one had to pay teachers and tutors without quite knowing why. I had never known the pleasure of reading, of exploring the recesses of the soul, of letting myself be carried away by imagination, beauty, and the mystery of fiction and language. For me all those things were born with that novel. This is a world of shadows, Daniel, and magic is a rare asset. That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely. It could give me back the sight I had lost. For that reason alone, a book that didn't matter to anyone, changed my life.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Do you know how I love you? My spirit leisurely roams around yours until it discovers a crevice. It then trickles inward through that crevice, pouring my affection into its depths. Yet, as the same crevice resides within my own soul, I inadvertently inflict pain upon you, for our crevices are sharp and profound.”
― Seda Ulu, Darkness In The Light #2

“A library should fill our leisure with adventure. It is a refuge from the commonplace and the dull, a sanctuary where all the trials, the tribulations, and the boredoms of the outer world are forbidden and where such an evil thing as a tax-collector may be forgotten and, peradventure, forgiven.”
― E. Norman Torry, Round My Library Fire: A Book about Books

“Of all kinds of human weaknesses, the craze for collecting old books is the most excusable. During the early phases of the disease, the book-lover is content to purchase only books which he [sic] reads. Next he buys books which he means to read; and as his store accumulates, he hopes to read his purchases; but by-and-by he takes home books in beautiful bindings and of early date, but printed in extinct languages he cannot read.”
― Robert Milne Williamson, Bits from an Old Book Shop

“The library is really nice and really handsome. Its dark wooden bookshelves house rows upon rows of lovely-looking books. The books are not bound in protective plastic jackets like they are in your local library. Instead, they are bound in fabric. The mere sight of them makes you want to twirl around in a marveling manner, like people do in films.”
― Alice Franklin, Life Hacks for a Little Alien

“Book Bans Are Dumb
(Sonnet 1587)

Book bans are dumb,
It makes the mind numb.
If banning books were justice,
Middle ages would've been fun.

I’ve got Mein Kampf on my shelf,
next to bible, quran and vedanta.
You cannot fathom the wholeness of life,
if you let expansion be dictated by law.

Expansion can't be contained by law,
concocted in the gutter of tribalism.
Burning books doesn't prevent darkness,
It only obstructs illumination.

Book bans are dumb,
it makes the world numb.
Read reason, fiction, the lot -
Stretch your mind beyond medieval vision.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Love is for the heart what books are for the brain.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim

“Safest place for a book is on the shelf, but that's neither its place nor purpose. A book is supposed to have wrinkled pages, cover ripped, and spine broken, still unbent - that's how you know it's a book well read, and the same holds true for a life well lived.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Like all the books you have ever come across, you think it looks interesting.”
― Alice Franklin, Life Hacks for a Little Alien

“Anatomy of Typos (Sonnet)

It took me a 100 books to realize this,
typos are not a stain upon literature,
typos are ornament of literature,
sweet reminders of human endeavor.

It's great to have literature without typos,
like it's great to have a life without regrets.
But in actuality, only the dead have no regrets,
only the uncreative make no typographical mistakes.

There are typos that are grievous, hence,
need correcting, but most typos are harmless.
Repulsed by typos means repulsed by literature,
repulsed by regrets means repulsed by existence.

Typos are the ornament of literature,
regrets are the ornament of life.
To make peace with regrets is the beginning of life,
to make peace with typos is to empower literary light.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Typos are not a stain upon literature, typos are ornament of literature.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Save your soul, acquire print books (Sonnet 2434)

I once wrote, save trees, buy ebooks;
since then a couple of things have come to light.
You can lose access to the ebooks you purchase,
anytime the platform decides to remove them.

However, the most heinous case of all is that,
it's only a matter of time that platforms
quietly start altering existing literature,
like they are already doing to streaming.

Nature will endure the loss of a few trees
in the sacred cause of mind expansion,
but no amount of energy conservation
can make up for doctored consciousness.

The minor dent on nature for literature
is nothing compared to the species level
damage that looms, once existing literature
starts getting doctored by crooks.
Ebooks, audiobooks, the choice is yours, but
always acquire print copies of your cherished books.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“The minor dent on nature for literature is nothing compared to the species level damage that looms, once existing literature starts getting doctored by crooks. Ebooks, audiobooks, the choice is yours, but always acquire print copies of your cherished books.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Save your soul, acquire print books.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Save your soul, acquire print books. It's only a matter of time that platforms quietly start altering existing literature, like they are already doing to streaming.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Save your soul, acquire print books. It's only a matter of time that platforms quietly start altering existing literature, like they are already doing to streaming. Nature will endure the loss of a few trees in the sacred cause of mind expansion, but no amount of energy conservation can make up for doctored consciousness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“This book sees the light of day, and its pages are meant to dance before our prying eyes. And yet we are either already initiates or already lost.”
― Erik Gunderson, Nox Philologiae: Aulus Gellius and the Fantasy of the Roman Library

“読まない本を持つのは時間や空間のムダだという論がありますが、とんでもない話です。本は、買うだけでいい。読もうが読むまいが、いいと思った本を手元に置いておくだけで人生は豊かになります。題名を読んで中身を想像すれば感情は動く。「いつか読もう」と思えば、目も頭も大切にして、長生きしようと努力するかもしれないじゃないですか。

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There is an argument that keeping unread books is a waste of time and space, but that is simply preposterous. All you need to do is buy the book. Whether you read it or not, simply having books you like close at hand will enrich your life. Just reading the title and imagining the content can stir your emotions. If you think, "I'll read it someday," it might even motivate you to treasure your eyes and mind and strive to live longer, don't you think?

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有一種論調認為，擁有不看的書是浪費時間和空間，但這簡直是荒謬至極。書，買了就好。無論讀不讀，只要把你看上的書放在身邊，你的人生就會變得豐富。光是閱讀書名並想像內容，你的情感就會有所觸動。如果你想著「總有一天要讀」，也許就會因此珍惜眼睛和頭腦，努力讓自己活得更久，難道不是嗎？”
― Natsuhiko Kyogoku