Ellen > Ellen's Quotes

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.”
― Arnold Lobel

“Books may well be the only true magic.”
― Alice Hoffman

“Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”
― Saul Bellow

“Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“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

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid.”
― Joan Bauer, Rules of the Road

“In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which are frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you...And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. ”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

“It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others - even my nearest and dearest - there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book.”
― Maureen Corrigan, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books

“[D]on't ever apologise to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologise to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read...”
― Neil Gaiman

“Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding.”
― Stephen King

“Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier. ”
― Kathleen Thompson Norris, Hands Full of Living

“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.”
― Anne Herbert