"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
— Groucho Marx (The Essential Groucho)

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
— Mark Twain

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
— Albert Einstein

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."
— Stephen King

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul."
— Joyce Carol Oates

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."
— Robert Frost

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading."
— William Styron

"You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend."
— Paul Sweeney

"Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat."
— Alex Levine

"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

"Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?"
"Yes," said Harry stiffly.
"Yes, sir."
"There's no need to call me "sir" Professor."
The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

"Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"Oh, poor Watcher. Did your life pass before your eyes — 'Cuppa tea, cuppa tea... almost got shagged... cuppa tea'?
"
— Joss Whedon (The Gift: Cinemanga)

"You're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater."
— Joss Whedon

"Wash: "Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction."

Zoe: "We live in a space ship, dear."

"
— Firefly (Objects in Space)

"Also, I can kill you with my brain."
— River (Joss Whedon's Firefly)

"But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"All we have is to decide what to do with the time that is given to us. "
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Certainty of death, small chance of success... well, what're we waiting for?

(From The Lord of the Rings screenplay by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens; incorrectly attributed to JRR Tolkien)"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"I will not say, Do not weep, for not all tears are an evil. "
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"Witch king: Fool. No man may can kill me!
Eowyn: (pulls off helmet) I am no man! (kills him)"
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings - Return of the King)

"Gandalf: The journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take. Grey rain curtan of this world rolls back and it all turns to silver glass. And then you see it."
"Pippen: What Gandalf? What?"
"Gandalf: White shores. And beyond, the far green country and a swift sunrise."
"Pippen: That isn't so bad."
"Gandalf: No. No, it isn't."

(From The Lord of the Rings screenplay by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens; incorrectly attributed to JRR Tolkien)"
— Philippa Boyens

"I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.
"
— Alan Rickman

"Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him."
— Vladimir Nabokov

"We all have such fateful objects -- it may be a recurrent landscape in one case, a number in another -- carefully chosen by the gods to attract events of specific significance for us: here shall John always stumble; there shall Jane's heart always break."
— Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)

"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."
— Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)

"I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip."
— Vladimir Nabokov (Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited)

"Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity."
— Vladimir Nabokov

"Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form."
— Vladimir Nabokov

"I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons who move their lips when reading."
— Vladimir Nabokov

"Listen: I am ideally happy. My happiness is a kind of challenge. As I wander along the streets and the squares and the paths by the canal, absently sensing the lips of dampness through my worn soles, I carry proudly my ineffable happiness. The centuries will roll by, and schoolboys will yawn over the history of our upheavals; everything will pass, but my happiness , dear, my happiness will remain,in the moist reflection of a street lamp, in the cautious bend of stone steps that descend into the canal's black waters, in the smiles of a dancing couple, in everything with which God so generously surrounds human loneliness."
— Vladimir Nabokov (Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977)

"I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.

"
— Vladimir Nabokov