Samara > Samara's Quotes

“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”
― Henry Ward Beecherr

“A house without books is like a room without windows.”
― Horace Mann

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people's books, one's own books - it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction. And often, very often, while browsing haphazardly, looking for nothing in particular, you pick up a volume that suddenly excites you, and you know that this one of all the others you must read. Those are great moments - and the books we come across like that are often the most memorable.”
― Aidan Chambers

“Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

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

“By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants