Barbara > Barbara 's Quotes

“A library is never complete. That’s the joy of it. We are always seeking one more book to add to our collection.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

“I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While

“Fairyland is the loveliest word because it means everything the human heart desires.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Selected Journals Of L.M. Montgomery, Vol. 3: 1921-1929

“I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker

“You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Leaving any bookstore is hard, especially on a day in August, when the street outside burns and glares, and the books inside are cool and crisp to the touch; especially on a day in January, when the wind is blowing, the ice is treacherous, and the books inside seem to gather together in colorful warmth. It's hard to leave a bookstore any day of the year, though, because a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.”
― Jane Smiley

“Perhaps as one gets older one takes one's joys altruistically,"said John, in turn thinking aloud. "I must say though I sometimes wish I could get it selfishly, just for myself, as Gay used to give me, when I was young."

Lady Emily found nothing to say. John's last words fell dead on her heart. It terrified her that he could speak of his youth as a perished thing.”
― Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries

“I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.”
― David Gerrold, A Matter for Men

“The myth of altruism as a motivating factor in our behavior could arise and survive only in a society bundled in the sterile gauze of New England puritanism and Protestant morality and tied together with the ribbons of Madison Avenue public relations. It is one of the classic American fairy tales. From”
― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

“Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen