Tuesday, October 7, 2014

A Love Affair: 14 Quotes on Books and Reading

photo courtesy of pixabay.com

Oh, this love affair with books. It will endure for some of us for a long, long time. Never-ending TBR piles, recommendations, classics, favorites. Why are they so special to us?

I decided to explore what others say about books and reading. Some of my discoveries:

1. "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." --Haruki Murakami

2. "There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all." --Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

3. "The books you don't read won't help." --Jim Rohn

4. "There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read." --Gilbert K. Chesterton

5. "It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it." --Oscar Wilde

6. "Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"-- Henry Ward Beecher

7. "I divide all readers into two classes; those who read to remember and those who read to forget." --William Lyon Phelps

8. "You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend." --Paul Sweeney

9. "A book is a device to ignite the imagination." --Alan Bennett

10. "A good book has no ending." --R.D. Cumming

11. "Books have that strange quality, that being of the frailest and tenderest matter, they outlast brass, iron, and marble." --William Drummond, Bibliotheca Edinburgena Lectori

12. "Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients." --Samuel Johnson

13. "I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a man who did not love reading." --Thomas Babington Macaulay

14. "Novels are sweets." --William Makepeace Thackeray, Roundabout Papers: On a Lazy Idle Boy

And we thought sugar was addictive? Ha!

And now for the big announcement, the winner of my 300th post celebration giveaway...drum roll please....Catherine Winn! Congratulations, Catherine, and thanks for celebrating with me :-)

Have a great rest of the week, everyone.
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6 comments:

  1. This post is so interesting to me because I've just finished reading (for the second time) Maggie Stiefvater's wonderful books, The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series.

    I can't imagine life without the joy of reading. I can't imagine not having a book beside me. But I wonder if future generations will say that. In my Children's Literature Class, only a couple of the 17 students say they often read for pleasure. Sad.

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    1. Peggy, I'm going to have to read these Stiefvater's books based on your endorsement. I've read two of her titles, Shiver and Linger, but not the ones you mention. They must be really good if you want to revisit them!

      And I know what you mean about future generations reading for the fun of it. I am thankful to see how my grandchildren are developing a love for books but I wonder about kids in general with all the technological gadgets they love. Maybe your students--who are interested enough to take a children's lit class--will come back to a love of reading for the pleasure of it once they get out of the grind of school?

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  2. Love these, thanks for sharing! And congrats to Catherine on the giveaway win :)

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  3. Thank you, Kenda! I'm totally excited :)!

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  4. Congrats to Catherine, and to you on 300 posts! :) Thanks for the inspiration through the quotes. These need to be savored, I'm thinking!

    Happy weekend!

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  5. Thanks, Jess, Catherine and Karen--appreciate you dropping by and glad you like the quotes. Each one seems to have its own special message, but my favorite? Beecher's "Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?" We will be tested here in Cincinnati this Saturday at the annual "Books by the Banks" event downtown. Local authors gather where we can talk to them, buy their books, have them autograph them. Got to go with a predetermined budget, that's for sure! Bet you'd like it if you were in town :-)

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