De > De's Quotes

“The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book."

(Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading, Harper's Magazine, February 2008)”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.”
― The Economist

“You clap. The Censor wakes up. We all get into trouble.”
― Craig Ferguson

“Here's a quick rule of thumb: Don't annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you.”
― John Scalzi

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

“All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States -- and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“A word to the unwise.
Torch every book.
Char every page.
Burn every word to ash.
Ideas are incombustible.
And therein lies your real fear.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Don't mark up the Library's copy, you fool! Librarians are Unprankable. They'll track you down! They have skills!”
― Charles Ogden

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
― Mark Twain

“Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it. Taking a chance and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've always known is the only way to grow, though and without risk there is no reward.”
― Wil Wheaton, Just a Geek: Unflinchingly Honest Tales of the Search for Life, Love, and Fulfillment Beyond the Starship Enterprise

“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
― Henry Adams

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass

“Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. ”
― Robert Heinlein

“Who wills, Can.
Who tries, Does.
Who loves, Lives.”
― Anne McCaffrey

“The tears I feel today
I'll wait to shed tomorrow.
Though I'll not sleep this night
Nor find surcease from sorrow.
My eyes must keep their sight:
I dare not be tear-blinded.
I must be free to talk
Not choked with grief, clear-minded.
My mouth cannot betray
The anguish that I know.
Yes, I'll keep my tears til later:
But my grief will never go.”
― Anne McCaffrey, Dragonsinger

“Oh, Tongue, give sound to joy and sing
Of hope and promise on dragonwing”
― Anne McCaffrey, Dragonsong

“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“Belief is the wound that knowledge heals.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Telling

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“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: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“Each moment is a place
you've never been.”
― Mark Strand, New Selected Poems

“There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.”
― Christopher Morley, Pipefuls

“It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“One of the nastier trends in library management in recent years is the notion that libraries should be 'responsive to their patrons'.”
― Connie Willis

“Are you always a smartass?'

Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”
― Ken Kesey, Kesey's Garage Sale

“Do I have to talk to insane people?"
"You're a librarian now. I'm afraid it's mandatory.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot

“Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room