Unread Books Quotes

“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]”
― Gabe Habash

“Collect books, even if you don’t plan on reading them right away. Filmmaker John Waters has said, “Nothing is more important than an unread library.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“Only landscapes that don't exist and books I'll never read aren't tedious. Life, for me, is a drowsiness that never reaches the brain. This I keep free, so that I can be sad there.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Pride of reading is a terrible thing. There are certain literary sets in which the book is an instrument of tyranny. If you have not read it you are made to feel unspeakably abject, for the book you have not read is always the one book in the world that you should have read. It is the sole test of literary insight, good taste and mental worth. To confess that you have not read it is to expose yourself as an illiterate person. It is like admitting that you have never eaten with a fork.”
― Frank Moore Colby, Imaginary Obligations

“It is not uncommon for people to purchase a book and then buy another one not long after, before they have read the first one. Unread books accumulate.”
― Marie Kondō, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up / Goodbye, Things

“Indeed, unread books may govern the world, not well, since they so often are taken to justify our worst impulses and prejudices. The Holy Bible is a case in point”
― Marilynne Robinson, What Are We Doing Here?

“Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper.”
― David Quammen, The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder

“I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my credit. Honestly, my attention generally diverts elsewhere. I own a few books, but have more than I'll personally ever read."
"Is that not a sign of a good library?" Miss Elizabeth replied. "To run out of something new to read would be far more unfortunate than having too many unread books.”
― Alexis Lampley, Pride and Prejudice in Space