Mo > Mo's Quotes

“If you're 50 years old or younger, give every book about 50 pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up.

If you're over 50, which is when time gets shorter, subtract your age from 100 - the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding whether or not to quit. If you're 100 or over you get to judge the book by its cover, despite the dangers in doing so.”
― Nancy Pearl

“As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion....if the next thing you're going to say makes you feel better, then it's probably the wrong thing to say. This is one of the finer maxims that I've discovered in life. And you can have it, since it's been of no use to me.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“There is nothing that is quite so reassuring in an awkward situation as knowing that one is well turned-out, and while I hope I am not so fainthearted as to require such stratagems, I am not so foolish as to overlook their value.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Any difficulties posed by lack of rooms, space or even beds should never be permitted to interfere with the demands of hospitality to family or friends. Something can always be contrived.”
― Jane Austen

“Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”
― Andrew Carnegie

“From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.”
― Lemony Snicket

“A bit of trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides the necessary roughage in the literary diet.”
― Phyllis McGinley

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”
― Stephen King

“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.”
― Louis L'Amour, Matagorda/The First Fast Draw: Two Novels in One Volume

“I’m lecturing my class last week. In the English language, I tell them, a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn’t a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative. And I hear a voice from the back of the room: ‘Yeah, right.’ ”
― William Alexander, Flirting with French: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart

“I opened a book and in I strode. Now nobody can find me.”
― Julia Donaldson

“In principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Reader's Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read

2. The right to skip pages

3. The right to not finish

4. The right to reread

5. The right to read anything

6. The right to escapism

7. The right to read anywhere

8. The right to browse

9. The right to read out loud

10. The right to not defend your tastes”
― Daniel Pennac