novel book quotations

Ebook Friendly

50 most inspiring literature quotes of all time.

Get inspired by the world’s most recognized book quotes – and make sure to read or re-read the books they come from.

Internet users share hundreds of thousands of quotes every day. Not too many people know that many of these great thoughts come from books. Even fewer know which books.

A single iconic sentence from a classic novel is not only a shot of positive energy. It’s proof that reading the remaining thousands of sentences will give the same level of pleasure and inspiration.

Want great quotes direct you to great reads? We list our 50 favorites below. For more inspiration, you can explore two quote collections.

First of all, you should check out Goodreads Quotes catalog – a section of the popular book recommendation site where users add their favorite quotes found in books.

By default, the book quotes on Goodreads are sorted by popularity (and this means the number of likes), so right away you’ll get inspired by the most powerful thoughts.

If you are looking for well-researched and attributed quotes, make sure to visit Wikiquote . Literary quotes are grouped by title, so it’s the easiest way to research the most interesting thoughts from specific books. What’s also very helpful, each detail page includes info about which chapter the particular quote comes from.

If there is a quote you believe should be added to the list, please share it in the comments below.

And now, take your time and get inspired!

50 most inspirational quotes from books

There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. – H.Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

Well-behaved women seldom make history. – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. – André Gide, Autumn Leaves

You can hang this wonderful quote from André Gide on the wall. The artwork designed by Quotes and Prose is available for instant download, 8 × 10 inch jpeg or pdf file.

Who, being loved, is poor? – Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving. – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Get busy living, or get busy dying. – Stephen King, Different Seasons

The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. – Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

Travel far enough, you meet yourself. – David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

A quote from David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas on a calligraphy print by Brenna Morris. The artwork is available in three sizes, from 4 × 6 to 8 × 10 inches.

None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are. – Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

Most people are nice when you finally see them. – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Don’t panic. – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time. – Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven

When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive. – Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The design by Sweetest Pie. You can get it from Etsy as an instant download, and print yourself in one of two sizes.

The only limits for tomorrow are the doubts we have today. –Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives. – Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator

I don’t want to die without any scars. – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up. – Veronica Roth, Divergent

When you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worth while. – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

A quote beautifully visualized by Chasing Elephants. You can get a digital file of this green color version, but also ask the shop owner for a different set of colors.

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. – Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. – Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. – Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

This beautiful design comes from The Love Shop. It’s available on as much as 38 different products, including wall art, home decor, apparel, and stationery.

⇢ Redbubble

If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels. – Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane. – Philip K. Dick, Valis

If you’re making mistakes it means you’re out there doing something. – Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. – Paulo Coelho, Brida

If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself. – Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

To define is to limit. – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. – Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all. – John Green, Paper Towns

Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer. – Dan Brown, Digital Fortress

So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible. – Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. – Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. – Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. – John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. – Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men

We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy. – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

A hand-lettered artwork by Simple Serene is available on posters, travel mugs, iPhone skins, and wall clocks, among others.

⇢ Amazon Handmade

Nothing that’s worthwhile is ever easy. – Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. – Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

It is never too late to be wise. – Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. – Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for. – Joseph Heller, Catch-22

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Don’t stop exploring. Here are other popular lists:

• Free ebooks for Christmas 2023: here are the top 20 downloads Just like a year ago, we are presenting the list of ebooks that were most downloaded from Project Gutenberg in […]
• 12 best personalized gifts for librarians and library supporters These library-themed gifts are extremely easy to personalize. All you have to do is add your own text!
• Here are the 12 best iPhone case covers for book lovers In this updated overview, you’ll see gorgeous iPhone covers that will remind you of the joy of reading books anywhere, […]
• 12 best metal accessories and home decor for book lovers Explore some of the best home decor items for book lovers that are handmade from metal: steel, brass, copper, bolts, […]

If you don’t want to miss future updates, make sure to enable email notifications in the comment box below. We are also waiting for you on WordPress Reader , Mastodon , Tumblr , and Facebook . You can also add us to your Google News channels.

If you buy an item via this post, we may get a small affiliate fee ( details ). We only use the cookies that are necessary to run this site properly ( details ).

Share this:

• Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Popular posts.

Free ebooks for Christmas 2023: here are the top 20 downloads

Just like a year ago, we are presenting the list of ebooks that were most downloaded from Project Gutenberg in the last 30 days.

Ebooks may be a gateway to a harmful surveillance

The fact that you don’t reveal your reading activity to the public doesn’t mean your sensitive data is 100% protected.

All your print and digital Amazon books are now in one place – except the sideloaded ones

Amazon has just launched Your Books, a personalized space with all your print, Kindle, and Audible books. However, the service doesn’t include your sideloaded ebooks.

Turn your Kindle lockscreen into a custom composition notebook cover

This simple guide will let you use an iconic composition notebook design as a Kindle screensaver image.

Audiobook listening in 2023, according to Spotify

Spotify’s announcement of the introduction of audiobooks in the U.S. comes with an infographic about audiobook listening habits.

Almost 1,100 Kindle ebooks are on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023

This shopping season, forget about the Kindle, and get Kindle books instead. In three combines deals, well over 1,000 books are featured – and Cyber Monday hasn't started yet.

Start Reading

Big magic: creative living beyond fear.

by ELIZABETH GILBERT

Once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Gilbert, who was not related to me – unfortunately for me. 

Jack Gilbert was a great poet, but if you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. He never much cared about being known. But I knew about him, and I loved him dearly from a respectful distance, so let me tell you about him.

Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh in 1925 and grew up in the midst of that city’s smoke, noise, and industry. He worked in factories and steel mills as a young man, but was called from an early age to write poetry. He answered the call without hesitation. He became a poet the way other men become monks: as a devotional practice, as an act of love, and as a lifelong commitment to the search for grace and transcendence. I think this is probably a very good way to become a poet. Or to become anything, really, that calls to your heart and brings you to life.

176 words read ...

New at Reader Updated

• ALA report: public libraries see 92 percent increase in number of titles targeted for censorship 
• Study: reading on paper improves comprehension even 8 times more than digital
• Christmas reading challenge (cartoon)
• Discover the positive side of life through illustrations by Elise Gravel
• Gen Z vs. Millennials – how they read books and use libraries (report)
• Goodreads Choice Awards 2023: the winners are here!
• The current book reading habits in the U.S. (survey and infographic)
• What if Wes Anderson visited a library and made a movie about it? (video)

Revolution Begins Book Lover Funny T-Shirt – Time to start a revolution, comrades! Wait, I need to finish the book, first – and a bookmark comes as a handy excuse. This vintage artwork says: “The revolution begins as soon as I remember where I left my bookmark”.

Ebook lover's friendly companion

Discover more from ebook friendly.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

100 Most Famous Book Quotes of All Time

This post may contains affiliate links. If you click and buy we may make a commission, at no additional charge to you. Please see our disclosure policy for more details.

Have you ever encountered a quote that pierced your heart, made you laugh uncontrollably, brought a huge smile to your face, or made you bawl your eyes out?

I’m sure many of you have come across such quotes, and being readers, it’s an everyday thing for us, right? Well, it’s definitely for me! 

Certain phrases in a book hold the power to make us feel a plethora of emotions, and they stick with us even after the book is placed in our ‘finished reading section.’ 

Book quotes are worth writing and remembering, and if you connect with them, then they will be with you forever. 

To help you with the collection, I have compiled this list of 100 famous book quotes from some of the world’s most beloved authors and their best-known books. 

With the combination of classics and modern-day books , this list consists of quotes that have struck a chord in the hearts of millions around the world.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. _ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you. _ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go… _ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Dr Seuss

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. _ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Forgiveness condones nothing, but it does cast off the chains of anger, judgment, resentment, denial, and pain that choke growth. In this way, it allows for life, for freedom. So that’s what’s at stake when it comes to forgiveness: freedom. With this freedom, we can feel better, be better, and choose better next time. _ Michele Harper, The Beauty in Breaking

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone … just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. _ The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. _ Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well — or ill? _ John Steinbeck, East of Eden

This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. _ William Shakespeare, Hamlet

‘Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.’ _ E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. _ Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. _ George Orwell, Animal Farm

How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. _ André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name

And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. _ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. _ Margery Williams, Velveteen Rabbit

There are years that ask questions and years that answer. _ Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart. _ Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Ever’body’s askin’ that. ‘What we comin’ to?’ Seems to me we don’t never come to nothin’. Always on the way. _ John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. _ George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. _ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Tomorrow I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day. _ Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. _ Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. _ Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. _ J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe. _ Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. _ Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. _ Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. _ Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger. _ Yann Martel, Life of Pi

You pierce my soul. I am half agony. Half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. _ Jane Austen, Persuasion

You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget. _ Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Call me Ishmael. _ Herman Melville, Moby Dick

He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. _ Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. _ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey

Time is the longest distance between two places. _ Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude. _ Kate Chopin, The Awakening

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. _ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. _ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading. _ Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. _ Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible. _ Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it. _ Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star — we are all one, all moving to the same end. _ P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. _ Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way. _ Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Love is holy because it is like grace – the worthiness of its object is never really what matters. _ Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means you go on even though you’re scared. _ Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. _ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you. _ Roald Dahl, The Witches

Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. _ Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42. _ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. _ William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold. _ S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living. _ Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Not all those who wander are lost. _ The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein

Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. _ William Goldman, The Princess Bride

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. _ Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost. _ Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. _ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

For you, a thousand times over. _ Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever. _ Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

And may the odds be ever in your favor. _ Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. _ William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Oh, the places you’ll go! You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights. _ Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go

The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything. _ Isabel Allende, City of the Beasts

We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories. _ Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. _ William Shakespeare, The Tempest

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect. _ Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. _ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

‘But man is not made for defeat,’ he said. ‘A man can be destroyed but not defeated.’ _ Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. _ Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for.” _ Joseph Heller, Catch-22

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after. _ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. _ To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom. _ Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” _ Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“But it’s like trying to hold on to a fistful of sand: all the little bits slip out of your hands, and then you’re just clutching air and grit.” _ Jenny Han To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways.” _ Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“But the truth is, praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even.” _ The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid

“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.” _ Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.” _ Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.” _ Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.” _ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

“God gives us the ugliness so we don’t take the beautiful things in life for granted.” _ Colleen Hoover, Ugly Love

“Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.” _ George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“And that’s how easy it is for a writer to pretend to be someone they aren’t.” _ Colleen Hoover, Verity

“Nobody likes being alone that much. I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment. ” _ Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“A lot of you cared, just not enough.” _ Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“There’s a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.” _ Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Impulsive actions led to trouble, and trouble could have unpleasant consequences.” _ Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

“He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude.” _ Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.” _ Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.” _ Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.”  _ Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale

“It had always seemed to him a very plush kind of problem, a privilege, really, to consider whether life was meaningful or not.” _ Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there was nothing physically wrong. She hurt all the time. _ Stephen King, The Shining

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” _ Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world. _ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Humans are so ill-equipped for peace.” _ V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“People always clap for the wrong reasons.” _ J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

There are so many incredible, famous book quotes out there; it’s hard to choose just a few! What are your favorite book quotes of all time? Let me know in the comments below!

Check out these other great posts!

• 50 Walt Whitman Quotes
• 50 Inspiring Octavia E Butler Quotes
• 40 Wise and Inspiring Joan Didion Quotes
• 50 Fascinating Edgar Allan Poe Quotes
• 45 Inspiring Charles Dickens Quotes
• 40 Inspiring Nelson Mandela Quotes

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Home › Books & Reading Quotes

160 Quotes About Books & Reading

Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. See our disclosure for more info.

Many of us have special memories of the books that have inspired us, and have learned the profound effect that reading the right book can have at the right moment. If you’re short on time, reading some quotes about books is the next best thing.

Books have the power to transport us to new worlds and different times , but they can also take us back to the important moments in our own lives.

From building your vocabulary to reducing stress, preventing age-related cognitive decline and increasing your ability to empathize, reading books is an easy way to look after your mind and body.

Whether you’re an avid reader or wish you read more, we hope you enjoy these quotes about books and reading!

Page Contents

Quotes About Books

′Classic′ – a book which people praise and don’t read. Mark Twain

Sleep is good, he said, and books are better. George R.R. Martin

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. Charles W. Eliot

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Novel

The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night. Isabel Allende

If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book. J.K. Rowling

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. Carl Sagan

When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes. Erasmus

Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks. Dr. Seuss

That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet. Jhumpa Lahiri

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return. Salman Rushdie

I love the smell of book ink in the morning. Umberto Eco

Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book. Bill Patterson

It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially. Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. Neil Gaiman

Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book. E.B. White

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. Charles Baudelaire

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island. Walt Disney

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading. William Styron

The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. Kurt Vonnegut

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. Groucho Marx

I love books. I adore everything about them. I love the feel of the pages on my fingertips. They are light enough to carry, yet so heavy with worlds and ideas. I love the sound of the pages flicking against my fingers. Print against fingerprints. Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud. Nnedi Okorafor

Books were my pass to personal freedom. Oprah Winfrey

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. David Mitchell

If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads. Francois Mauriac

Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories. Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest. C.S. Lewis

Wear the old coat and buy the new book. Austin Phelps

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already. George Orwell, 1984

It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. C.S. Lewis

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Reading one book is like eating one potato chip. Diane Duane

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. Anne Lamott

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. Mortimer J. Adler

I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. Henry Ward Beecher

I guess there are never enough books. John Steinbeck

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

Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books. Ursula K. LeGuin

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. Terry Pratchett

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. Toni Morrison

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal! Thomas Babington Macaulay

Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper. David Quammen

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

I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books. Gary Paulsen

Happiness. That’s what books smells like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness? Saran MacLean

Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don’t you agree? Christopher Paolini

Quotes About Reading

Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write. Annie Proulx

Reading brings us unknown friends. Honore de Belzac

My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. Malcolm X

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere. Jean Rhys

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while. Malorie Blackman

We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind. Anna Quindlen

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world. Napoleon Bonaparte

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. Henry David Thoreau

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Joseph Addison

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. Harper Lee

Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I’d rather boast about the ones I’ve read. Jorge Luis Borges

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. Mary Wortley Montagu

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. Abraham Lincoln

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Rene Descartes

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive. James Baldwin

Reading—the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay. William Styron

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K. LeGuin

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities. Ben Okri

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift. Kate DiCamillo

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage. Roald Dahl

Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them. George Saunders

Reading—even browsing—an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. James Gleick

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work. Khaled Hosseini

I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time. Virginia Woolf

Reading means borrowing. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds. Roxane Gay

Read. Read. Read. Just don’t read one type of book. Read different books by various authors so that you develop different style. R.L. Stine

Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading. Rainer Maria Rilke

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours. Alan Bennett, The History Boys

It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else. John Waters

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. Sir Francis Bacon

The world was hers for the reading. Betty Smith

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. Voltaire

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Stephen King

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. Robert Frost

Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head. Paul Auster

A peasant that reads is a prince in waiting. Walter Mosley

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul. Joyce Carol Oates

A word after a word after a word is power. Margaret Atwood

Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers. Steven Spielberg

She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. Annie Dillard

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. John Locke

Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window. William Faulkner

Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you. Louis L’Amour

Reading was a joy, a desperately needed escape — I didn’t read to learn, I was reading to read. Christian Bauman

Reading is departure and arrival. Terri Guillemets

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” President Harry Truman

Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Nora Ephron

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. P.J. O’Rourke

Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading. Lena Dunham

The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t. Mark Twain

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. Robertson Davies

Leaders are always readers. Kevin Trudeau

Ready for more reading? Check out our list of 8 Books for Graduate Students and flip some great pages today.

The Best Literary Quotes

Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting

Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today. Holbrook Jackson

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand. Ezra Pound

I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess. H.P. Lovecraft

Think of this – that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other. A.S. Byatt, Possession

If you stop to think about it, you’ll have to admit that all the stories in the world consist essentially of twenty-six letters. The letters are always the same, only the arrangement varies. From letters words are formed, from words sentences, from sentences chapters, and from chapters stories. Michael Ende

There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away. Emily Dickinson

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. Oscar Wilde

In the end, we’ll all become stories. Margaret Atwood

Reading is my favorite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read. Anne Brontë

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can’t really put a book on the Internet. Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live. Gustave Flaubert

So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone. Roald Dahl, Matilda

Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry. Cassandra Clare

Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though. J.D. Salinger

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… the man who never reads lives only one. George R.R. Martin

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read. Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. Robert Louis Stevenson

Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them. Lemony Snicket, Horseradish

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond. C.S. Lewis

Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said…”As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells…and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…both strange and familiar. Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own. John Berger, Keeping a Rendezvous

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief. Franz Kafka

We hope you’ve loved these quotes about books and reading.

It’s never too late (or early) to expand your horizons and start reading, and reading books is even good for your physical and mental health . So star turning those pages and getting inspired through reading today.

Natalie Seale

3 thoughts on “160 Quotes About Books & Reading”

Thank you for all of these book quotes. I like to write them in my book journal and reread them often.

Thanks so much, for this wonderful book quotes.

My favorite quote is “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”– Erasmus

Thank you for this very interesting collection of thought-provoking quotes. If felt good to agree and disagree with them all – with none leaving me untouched.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The 22 best book quotes — and the books they come from

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

• Some of the best quotes about life and love come from literature.
• We've gathered some of the best book quotes as well as the books they're from.
• Want more books? Check out our list of the best classic books .

Great literature has gifted us some of the most meaningful and timeless quotes about life, love, and everything in between. Writers can put words to the feelings and experiences we can't quite capture ourselves and leave us with quotes that resonate long after we've turned the page. Readers have found moving quotes in everything from gothic classics to contemporary young adult reads . 

Sometimes, we're inspired by a quote that we didn't even know came from a book. I've heard "Not all those who wander are lost" countless times but never knew it was from a beloved fantasy series. To create this list, I looked at some of the most memorable and moving quotes from literature throughout time. For readers looking for a new inspirational read or wondering where some of the greatest lines originated from, here are some of the best literary quotes and the books they came from.

The 22 best book quotes of all time:

"love is or it ain't. thin love ain't love at all.".

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.29

" Beloved " is a Pultizer Prize-winning historical fiction about Sethe, an escaped slave still running from her past 18 years later. Haunted both metaphorically by her memories and literally by the ghost of her baby, Sethe's past and present collide when a mysterious teenage girl arrives with the same name engraved upon her child's tombstone.

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."

"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $5.47

This adored classic is about four sisters — Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy — who are struggling to survive in New England during the Civil War. First published in 1869, this novel has delighted readers for generations as they follow the sisters on each of their unique journeys to womanhood. 

"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

"Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.99

First published in 1969, " Slaughterhouse-Five " is an anti-war novel about Billy Pilgrim, who becomes a chaplain's assistant in the US. Army during World War II. While the story begins with Billy's childhood and continues years after the war, Billy occasionally travels through time to reflect upon his life, humanity, and the devastating effects of war.

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."

"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.89

" The Alchemist " is a powerful and inspirational story full of wisdom about a boy named Santiago who travels to Egypt from Spain in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. On his adventure, Santiago encounters numerous obstacles, meets interesting new people, and discovers so much more than the treasure he once sought.

"There is always something left to love."

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez, available at Amazon and Bookshop , $14.49

This beautiful multi-generational story of the Buendía family begins with José Arcadio Buendía, the founding patriarch of the town of Macondo. Following seven generations of the family through feuds, friendships, and technological advancements, this novel uses magical realism to explore extraordinary moments through time.

"What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?"

"The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.98

" The Hate U Give " is a moving and timely young adult read about Starr Carter, a 16-year-old who witnesses her best friend, Khalil, get shot and killed by the police. When his death makes national headlines, everyone wants to hear what really happened, but Starr is fully aware of what telling the truth could mean as well as the consequences of staying silent.

"They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it."

"On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous " by Ocean Vuong, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.67

This stunning and poetic novel is a letter from a son to his mother, who cannot read. Little Dog is in his 20s, exploring and speaking frankly about sexuality, masculinity, grief, and race as he unravels his family's history rooted in Vietnam, leading to an unforgettable conclusion in this powerful novel about humanity and language. 

"Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for."

"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.22

Loved as a funny and realistic view on war, " Catch-22 " is about Yossarian, a bombardier during World War II who is mad that thousands of enemies are trying to kill him while his army continues to increase the number of dangerous missions he's required to fly. Yossarian finds himself in a Catch-22, a bureaucratic rule that says men who continue to fly dangerous missions should be considered insane, yet if they make a request to be removed, they are proven sane and ineligible for relief.

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am."

"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15

" The Bell Jar " is a semi-autobiographical novel and a haunting classic from Sylvia Plath. The book follows Esther Greenwood, a young woman in Boston who is consumed by depression and anxiety as her mental state worsens over time.

"Time moves slowly, but passes quickly."

"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.99

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, " The Color Purple " is a magnificent and important novel about the abuse silently suffered by Black women in the 20th century. Celie and Nettie are sisters who were separated as children but continue to communicate and share messages of hope through letters that sustain them through seemingly insurmountable pain in this story of strength and redemption.

"Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass."

"The Round House" by Louise Erdrich, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.25

This 2012 National Book Award winner follows a young boy on the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota whose community and family is changed forever in the wake of a terrible crime. Richly layered, this profound mystery is about so much more than finding a criminal and seeking justice.

"When I discover who I am, I'll be free."

"Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.99

" Invisible Man " is a 1952 classic that shaped American literature as an unnamed man from the South who gets a scholarship to an all-Black school in Harlem but must participate in a horrifying and humiliating "battle royal" in order to claim his spot. Powerful and raw, this novel explores identity and belonging as the narrator continues to search for his individuality in a society that doesn't want him to be himself. 

"Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful."

"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $5.52

First published in 1818, " Frankenstein " is a horror classic about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who brings a monster to life and flees his laboratory in disgust, to return the next day and find that the creature is missing. In this novel that explores the dark power of alienation, Frankenstein's monster tells the devastating story to his creator of his first challenging days in the world.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.99

In this classic French children's book , a young prince meets a pilot whose plane has crashed in the desert, who begins to tell him his story of traveling across various planets and all he had seen and learned along the way. One of the most translated books in the world, " The Little Prince " is for readers of all ages who wish to reminisce upon the nostalgic innocence of childhood.

"Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"

"Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.99

" Don Quixote " is a historical novel from the 1600s and one of the top-selling books of all time . Quixano is a young nobleman who decides to become a knight-errant after reading countless romances and falling in love with the idea of chivalry. Under the name "Don Quixote de la Mancha," Quixano brings the witty Sancho Panza along as his squire on his quest for knighthood.

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.36

" Wuthering Heights " is a classic, gothic novel from 1847 about two families — the Lintons and the Earnshaws — and their relationships with the Earnshaws' adopted son, Heathcliff. Full of complex characters, this classic follows Heathcliff's young friendship with his benefactor's daughter, Cathy, as it grows and morphs into a passionate and twisted romance.

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.35

" I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings " is Maya Angelou's first book in her multi-volume autobiography series. This installment offers a glimpse at Maya Angelou's early years as she struggles against racism when she and her brother are sent to live with their grandmother in a small Southern town. When she returns to live with her mother, a horrible attack changes Maya Angelou's life forever in this memoir about identity, race, and hope in the face of impossible circumstances. 

"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."

"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.99

Offred can remember enjoying life with her husband and daughter not long ago. Now, trapped in a dystopian present where women are only valued if they have viable ovaries, Offred is the Commander's handmaid, forced to lie down for him once a month and pray she gets pregnant in this devastatingly memorable read .

"As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."

"The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.10

Hazel's terminal cancer diagnosis has been extended by a few years when she meets a gorgeous boy named Augustus in her support group. Immediately drawn to one another, they agree to read each other's favorite books, launching a whirlwind teenage romance that's full of love and heartbreak.

"That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet."

"The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.98

" The Namesake " is Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel and explores the immigrant experience through the Ganguli family, whose story begins as Ashoke and Ashima uproot their traditional life in Calcutta and move to America shortly after their arranged marriage so Ashoke can attend school at MIT. When Ashima names their child Gogol, the meaning of his name continues to follow him through his life as he navigates the expectations of a first-generation immigrant.  

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

"Perks of Being A Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.19

In this unique coming-of-age novel set in the 1990s, Charlie is a freshman in high school who is torn between passivity and a budding passion for life while also being stuck between childhood and adulthood. This book is a compilation of his letters to an unknown recipient, discussing the challenges he faces with his family, in school, and in his personal life.

"Not all those who wander are lost."

"The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkein, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.27

" The Fellowship of the Ring " is the first novel in the classic fantasy "Lord of the Rings" series. In this book , the hobbit Bilbo Baggins entrusts young Frodo Baggins with an incredible and dangerous task: To take the powerful Ring to the Cracks of Doom and destroy it once and for all. Frodo sets off on an epic adventure across Middle-Earth in this beloved and revered novel.

• Main content

The 45 most powerful literary quotes of all time

The best memorable, inspiring and impactful passages of prose.

The most powerful literary quotes from famous books, poems and plays have the ability to stop you in your tracks. Whether you're hunting for the perfect sentiment to use in a speech or hoping to discover a bit of inspiration to get you through a difficult time, we highly recommend leafing through some of the greatest creative works of art.

Tense, thrilling page-turners are exciting to read. But hiding in the pages of some of the best novels of all time there are sentences that are so impactful, so powerful, that you stop reading and simply live in the beautiful prose for a moment.

In this guide we honour 45 of the most powerful sentences ever written. The most powerful, beautiful and heart-wrenching literary quotes that we hope you'll want to use and refer to or just contemplatively stare at again and again. We've included words spun from the minds of some of the best authors of all time, including Toni Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Stephen King.

If you love a literary quote that isn't on this list that hits you right in the feels every time you see it, then head to the comments – and upvote your faves!

• Heading on holiday soon? Make sure you pack one of the best summer reads .
• These are the best Dystopian Novels , just in case the real world isn't dystopian enough for you right now.

Most powerful literary quotes

1 . The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Author: Oscar Wilde

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

2 . The Road

Author: Cormac McCarthy

“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”

3 . In A Free State

Author : V.S. Naipaul

Year : 1971

"The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves."

4 . Anna Karenina

Author : Leo Tolstoy

Year : 1877

"It's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it."

5 . Breakfast At Tiffany's

Author: Truman Capote

“Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.”

6 . The Time Machine

Author: H.G. Wells

“It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.”

7 . Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption

Author : Stephen King

Year : 1982

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”

8 . Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

“We need never be ashamed of our tears.”

9 . Revolutionary Road

Author : Richard Yates

Year : 1961

"No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying."

10 . The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

Author : Philip K. Dick

Year : 1981

"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane."

12 . Jane Eyre

Author : Charlotte Brontë

Year : 1847

"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs."

13 . Frankenstein

Author: Mary Shelley

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

14 . The Witches

Author : Roald Dahl

Year : 1983

"It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you."

15 . Kafka On The Shore

Author : Haruki Murakami

Year : 2002

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."

16 . The Children Of Men

Author: P.D. James

“We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.”

17 . Invisible Man

Author: Ralph Ellison

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”

18 . Moby Dick

Author: Herman Melville

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

19 . On The Road

Author: Jack Kerouac

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

20 . The Handmaid's Tale

Author : Margaret Atwood

Year : 1985

"We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories."

Author : George Orwell

Year : 1949

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

22 . Ulysses

Author : James Joyce

Year : 1922

"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

23 . Of Mice And Men

Author : John Steinbeck

Year : 1937

"Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other."

24 . Middlemarch

Author: George Eliot

“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!” Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others.”

25 . Beloved

Author: Toni Morrison

“You are your best thing”

26 . Don Quixote

Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”

27 . London Fields

Author : Martin Amis

Year : 1989

"And meanwhile time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit."

28 . A Room With A View

Author: E.M. Forster

“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm - yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”

29 . Snow Falling On Cedars

Author: David Guterson

“None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we love each other we’re safe from it all. Love is the biggest thing there is.”

30 . Their Eyes Were Watching God

Author : Zora Neale Hurston

"She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her."

31 . The Sound And The Fury

Author: William Faulkner

“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

32 . The Mysterious Island

Author : Jules Verne

Year : 1874

"It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason."

33 . The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

Author: Mark Haddon

“Sometimes we get sad about things and we don’t like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don’t know why we are sad, so we say we aren’t sad but we really are.”

34 . Wuthering Heights

Author : Emily Brontë

"Terror made me cruel"

35 . Stardust

Author: Neil Gaiman

“She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.”

36 . Birdsong

Author : Sebastian Faulks

Year : 1993

"I know. I was there. I saw the great void in your soul, and you saw mine."

37 . American Psycho

Author : Bret Easton Ellis

Year : 1991

"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there."

38 . L.A. Confidential

Author: James Ellroy

“Some men get the world, some men get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona. You’re in with the former, but my God I don’t envy the blood on your conscience.”

39 . The Price Of Salt

Author: Patricia Highsmith

“Perhaps it was freedom itself that choked her.”

40 . Little Women

Author: Louisa May Alcott

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

41 . The Wizard of Oz

Author: L. Frank Baum

“You had the power all along my dear.”

42 . Half of a Yellow Sun

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?’ Aunty Ifeka said. ‘Your life belongs to you and you alone.”

43 . Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

“Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman’s power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon.”

44 . Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Author: Gloria E. Anzaldúa

“I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue—my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.”

45 . The Good Soldier

Author : Ford Madox Ford

Year : 1915

"Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing."

SOMETHING MISSING FROM OUR SHORTLIST?

Best free books for Kindle: classics to read for free

15 Things You Probably Don't Know About Catcher In The Rye

Banned books list: books so controversial they were banned

Related reviews and shortlists.

The best short books under 100 pages and quick to read

The best subscription boxes for the ultimate recurring gifts

The best comedy audiobooks: fantastic funny stories to listen to

The best audiobooks in 2023: great reads to listen to today

Classic books to read before you die: bucket list novels

34 of literature's greatest opening paragraphs

wisdom quotes trending all quotes

100 Book Quotes Every Book Lovers Will Love

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page .

Here are 100 of the most inspiring book quotes I could find. Hope you’ll find even more inspiration to read, learn and grow. Enjoy!

A book is a dream that you hold in your hands. Neil Gaiman

A good book is a creator of inwardness. Susan Sontag

I have always imagined paradise will be a kind of library. Jorge Luis Borges

Books are the training weights of the mind. Epictetus

Any book not worth rereading isn’t worth reading. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. William Hazlitt

Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us. Alain de Botton

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in. Arthur Schopenhauer

The poet lights the light and fades away. But the light goes on and on. Emily Dickinson

The greatest books have more insights than one can absorb in a single reading. James Pierce

Stories are illusion. They are so powerful they invite delusion. Stewart Brand

Knowledge sets us free, art sets us free. A great library is freedom. Ursula K. Le Guin

That is a good book it seems to me, which is opened with expectation and closed with profit. Louisa May Alcott

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you. W. Somerset Maugham

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. Ralph Waldo Emerson

• 100 Learning Quotes To Inspire You To Learn (Forever)
• 100 Knowledge Quotes That Will Change Your Perspective
• 100 Reading Quotes Every Book Lover Can Relate To

The Best Book Quotes

A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic. Carl Sagan

In a good book the best is between the lines. Swedish proverb

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. Leo Tolstoy

Readers are plentiful, thinkers are rare. Harriet Martineau

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self. Franz Kafka

One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me? Alain de Botton

Bad reading: when you rush through. Good reading: when you go slow. Wise reading: when you understand. Maxime Lagacé

The very greatest books only manage to illuminate the dark confusion of our lives like a brief brilliant firework. Alain de Botton

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. Mortimer J. Adler

A book is something that can be read ten years after publication. A real book, twenty. Otherwise it is a magazine report with bookbinding. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Let just as many books be acquired as are enough, but none for mere show. Seneca

Of all that is written, I love only what a man has written with his own blood. Friedrich Nietzsche

As a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. Arthur Schopenhauer

We’ve already discovered teleportation and time travel: a good book. Sahil Lavingia

I was dumb. I thought reading the classics would make me wise and educated. Now, I simply read the books that interest me. Maxime Lagacé

Part 1. Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Barbara Tuchman

Part 2. They are engines of change, windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print . Barbara Tuchman

People who ask for book recommendations don’t read. Sahil Lavingia

Great books teach you something every time you read them. Angela Jiang

Beware of the person of one book. Thomas Aquinas

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. Henry Ward Beecher

A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. Margaret Fuller

I would rather read the 100 best books over and over again until I absorbed them, rather than read all the books. Naval Ravikant

The right book at the right time will speak to you in a way the right book at the wrong time just won’t. Naval Ravikant

My library is an archive of longings. Susan Sontag

Part 2. Book Quotes That Are…

The most famous book quotes (c.s. lewis, dr. seuss, emerson, etc.).

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. Mark Twain

So many books, so little time. Frank Zappa

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. Maya Angelou

If a book is well written, I always find it too short. Jane Austen

The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul – books. Emily Dickinson

′Classic′ – a book which people praise and don’t read. Mark Twain

I was raised by books. Books, and then my parents. Elon Musk

Independent inquiry is needed in your search for truth, not dependence on anyone else’s view or a mere book. Bruce Lee

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. Dr. Seuss

A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest. C.S. Lewis

There is no friend as loyal as a book. Ernest Hemingway

I was with book, as a woman is with child. C.S. Lewis ( Till We Have Faces , Amazon book)

Your face is a book, where men may read strange matters. William Shakespeare

Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man. Vladimir Nabokov

Throw away your books; stop letting yourself be distracted. Marcus Aurelius (It seems Marcus Aurelius was not a dreamer…)

When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes. Desiderius Erasmus

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. Friedrich Nietzsche

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it. E. M. Forster

Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading. Lin Yutang ( The Importance of Living , Amazon book)

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it. Bertrand Russell

Sleep is good, he said, and books are better. George R. R. Martin

A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools. Thomas Jefferson

A book worth reading is worth buying. John Ruskin

Some books leave us free and some books make us free. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Short Book Quotes

Go to table of contents

I water my mind with books. Susan Sontag

Words are life. Markus Zusak ( The Book Thief , Amazon book)

Books are absent teachers. Mortimer J. Adler

When I had nothing, I had books. Jola Tankoka

Read more books and fewer articles. Morgan Housel

Books are a uniquely portable magic. Stephen King

Your brain is a muscle and books are the weights. James Clear

Books may well be the only true magic. Alice Hoffman

No two persons ever read the same book. Edmund Wilson

A room without books is like a body without a soul. Cicero

Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once. Stephen King

I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. Jane Austen

Books have superpowers; they ground you and make you fly too. Maxime Lagacé

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Cicero

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. Henry David Thoreau

Inspirational Book Quotes

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away. Emily Dickinson

It is the nature of those books we call classics to wait patiently on the shelf for us to grow into them. Erica Jong

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light. Vera Nazarian

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it. Elizabeth Drew

Don’t read to show off, read to take off. Maxime Lagacé

My library serves as a visual reminder of what I don’t know. Shane Parrish

That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet. Jhumpa Lahiri

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. Neil Gaiman

There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book. Charlie Munger

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum – of both books and money! But especially books, for books represent infinitely more than money. A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold. Henry Miller

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought. Susan Sontag

Books are gateways into other worlds and other minds into which you cannot otherwise travel. Unknown

I’ll never forgive books for being 300 pages when they could have been 30. Unknown

Think how quiet a book is on a shelf, just sitting there, unopened. Then think what happens when you open it. Ali Smith

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed on and digested. Francis Bacon

Buying books isn’t spending, it’s investing. Sven Schnieders

Further Readings

• Topic: Education
• 100 Education Quotes That Will Inspire You To Keep Growing
• 100 Curiosity Quotes To Increase Your Desire To Learn
• 65 Growth Mindset Quotes (To Improve Your Life)
• 145 Thinking Quotes To Make You More Thoughtful
• 81 The Alchemist Quotes And Summary (Book by Paulo Coelho)
• What Book has the Most Page-for-Page Wisdom? (fs.blog)
• 210 History Quotes That Will Surprise And Inspire You
• 100 Humanity Quotes That Will Touch Your Heart
• 150 Art Quotes To Bring Out Your Inner Artist

Table Of Contents

Part 1 Top 15 Images Best Quotes

Part 2 Book Quotes That ARE Famous Short Inspirational

Part 3 Conclusion

Was this helpful?

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." -Aristotle

Copyright © 2004-2024

80 Inspiring Quotes About Books and Reading

Books are important for the mind, heart, and soul. But don't take it from us: These quotes about reading speak for themselves.

By Stefanie Hargreaves

The power to be found between the pages of a book is formidable, indeed. And these 80 inspiring quotes about books and importance of reading are here to remind you of that. From beloved bestsellers to iconic celebrities, these quotes exemplify the benefits of reading and of a good books to comfort, challenge, and inspire you. For, as author Anna Quindlen says, "Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." – Margaret Fuller

"A word after a word after a word is power." – Margaret Atwood

"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time." – Carl Sagan

"Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world." – Napoleon Bonaparte

"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." – Charles Baudelaire

"When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young." – Maya Angelou

"Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift." – Kate DiCamillo

"I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them." – Emma Thompson

"It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else." – John Waters

"Books are a uniquely portable magic." – Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"Books are mirrors: You only see in them what you already have inside you." – Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Think before you speak. Read before you think. – Fran Lebowitz

"Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading." – Lena Dunham

"If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book." – J.K. Rowling

"I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book." – Benedict Cumberbatch

"Some books leave us free and some books make us free." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: They feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship." – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live." – Joan Didion, The White Album

"Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world." – Jeanette Winterson

"A good would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit." – David Sedaris

"Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time." – Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

We read to know we are not alone. – C.S. Lewis

"As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul." – Ursula K. Le Guin

"It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in." – Naomi Shihab Nye, I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven

"Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading." – Susan Sontag

"Have books ‘happened’ to you? Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ I’m unsure how to talk to you." – Haruki Murakami

"A story can always break into pieces while it sits inside a book on a shelf; and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth." – Andre Dubus, Meditations from a Movable Chair

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." – Frederick Douglass

"Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from one generation to the next. Books save lives." – Laurie Anderson

"Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps." – Ann Patchett

"Both reading and writing are experiences – lifelong – in the course of which we who encounter words used in certain ways are persuaded by them to be brought mind and heart within the presence, the power, of the imagination." – Eudora Welty

A room without books is like a body without a soul. – Cicero

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries." – Rene Descartes

"That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet." – Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

"I love the way that each book — any book — is its own journey. You open it, and off you go…" – Sharon Creech

"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while." – Malorie Blackman

"Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them." – George Saunders

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading." – William Styron

"I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves." – David Foster Wallace

"Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real." – Nora Ephron

"Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere." – Jean Rhys

"Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds." – Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive." – James Baldwin

"Reading is important. If you know how to read, then the whole world opens up to you." – Barack Obama

"That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong." – F. Scott Fitzgerald

"We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: We need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever." – Philip Pullman

"Books may well be the only true magic." – Alice Hoffman, Magic Lessons

"Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know." – Alberto Manguel, A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books

"A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on, you are enriched threefold." – Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

"Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work." – Khaled Hosseini

"It is known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else." – Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

"If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads." – François Mauriac

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life." – W. Somerset Maugham, Books And You

"I don't read a book; I hold a conversation with the author." – Elbert Hubbard

"Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again." – Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one." – George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

"Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly." – Sir Francis Bacon

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul." – Joyce Carol Oates

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe." – Madeleine L'Engle

"Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let's not forget this." – Dave Eggers

"Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like pressed flower... both strange and familiar." – Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

"The best books... are those that tell you what you know already." – George Orwell, 1984

"Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one's own self." – Franz Kafka

"Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head." – Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labelled 'This could change your life.'" – Helen Exley

"There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things." – Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book." – John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something–a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things–which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours." – Alan Bennett, The History Boys

"Reading is essential for those who seek to rise about the ordinary." – Jim Rohn

"The story is truly finished–and meaning is made–not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters." – Celeste Ng

"One must always be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us." – Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

"A book is a gift you can open again and again." – Garrison Kellor

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." – Charles W. Eliot

"Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?" – Christopher Paolini

"Once you've read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you." – Louis L'Amour

"The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive–all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment." – Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

Share with your friends

Related articles.

Best Book Club Books: Historical Fiction

Best Fiction Book Gifts for Every Reader on Your List

20 Incredible Short Books You Can Read in a Day

Celadon delivered.

Subscribe to get articles about writing, adding to your TBR pile, and simply content we feel is worth sharing. And yes, also sign up to be the first to hear about giveaways, our acquisitions, and exclusives!

" * " indicates required fields

Step 1 of 8

Connect with

Sign up for our newsletter to see book giveaways, news, and more, get our newsletter.

The 100 Best Quotes About Reading

You know our goal at Bookroo is to help you spend less time searching for books so you can spend more time reading! That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the 100 best quotes about reading. Read on to see the many insightful, witty, and motivating things that have been said about reading by authors, poets, scientists, artists, visionaries and even comedians.

Let us know in the comments below which is your favorite, and what quotes you would add to the list!

“ A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one. ” - George R.R. Martin

“ Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. ” - Harper Lee

“ Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them. ” - Lemony Snicket

“ You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ” - C.S. Lewis

“ Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. ” - Jim Rohn

“ I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. ” - Groucho Marx

“ ‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read. ” - Mark Twain

“ You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. ” - Ray Bradbury

“ So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall. ” - Roald Dahl

“ Think before you speak. Read before you think. ” - Fran Lebowitz

“ Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading. ” - Lena Dunham

“ That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet. ” - Jhumpa Lahiri

“ The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries. ” - Descartes

“ In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. ” - Mortimer J. Adler

“ Reading one book is like eating one potato chip. ” - Diane Duane

“ The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. ” - Dr. Seuss

“ Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while. ” - Malorie Blackman

“ Books are a uniquely portable magic. ” - Stephen King

“ I read a book one day and my whole life was changed. ” - Orhan Pamuk

“ People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. ” - Logan Pearsall Smith

“ Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. ” - Margaret Fuller

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

“ A good book is an event in my life. ” - Stendhal

“ Reading brings us unknown friends ” - Honoré de Balzac

“ The world was hers for the reading. ” - Betty Smith

“ I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. ” - Robert Louis Stevenson

“ The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn’t know how to read. ” - Benjamin Franklin

“ Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you. ” - Louis L’Amour

“ Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. ” - Fernando Pessoa

“ No. I can survive well enough on my own—if given the proper reading material. ” - Sarah J. Maas

“ There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island. ” - Walt Disney

“ We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read. ” - Jules Verne

“ A room without books is like a body without a soul. ” - Cicero

“ My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. ” - Malcolm X

“ 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

“ 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

“ There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read—unless it be reading while you eat. ” - E. Nesbit

“ One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. ” - Carl Sagan

“ I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage. ” - Roald Dahl

“ Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand. ” - Ezra Pound

“ If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. ” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“ Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. ” - P.J. O’Rourke

“ Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. ” - Jane Smiley

“ Beware of the person of one book. ” - Thomas Aquinas

“ Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. ” - Henry David Thoreau

“ Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself. ” - George Bernard Shaw

“ Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all. ” - Abraham Lincoln

“ I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once. ” - C.S. Lewis

“ 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

“ Some books leave us free and some books make us free. ” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“ Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. ” - Frederick Douglas

“ There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all. ” - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

“ Wear the old coat and buy the new book. ” - Austin Phelps

“ “You may have tangible wealth untold. Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be — I had a mother who read to me. ” - Strickland Gillilan

“ The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t. ” - Mark Twain

“ To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark. ” - Victor Hugo

“ Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words! ” - Betty Smith

“ A book is a gift you can open again and again. ” - Garrison Keillor

“ Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks. ” - Dr. Seuss

“ Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world. ” - Napoléon Bonaparte

“ A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. ” - Italo Calvino

“ I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. ” - Jorge Luis Borges

“ Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere. ” - Mary Schmich

“ No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. ” - Mary Wortley Montagu

“ I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them. ” - Emma Thompson

“ If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books. ” - Roald Dahl

“ That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library. ” - Aphra Behn

“ To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. ” - W. Somerset Maugham

“ Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book. ” - Bill Watterson

“ These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone. ” - Roald Dahl

“ I guess there are never enough books. ” - John Steinbeck

“ Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day. ” - Voltaire

“ If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book. ” - J.K. Rowling

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

“ Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading. ” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“ Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. ” - Emilie Buchwald

“ I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess. ” - H.P. Lovecraft

“ Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book. ” - E.B. White

“ Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience. ” - David Levithan

“ Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. ” - Groucho Marx

“ Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. ” - Albert Einstein

“ I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die. ” - Patrick Rothfuss

“ There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away ” - Emily Dickinson

“ I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down. ” - Edgar Allan Poe

“ Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. ” - Henry Ward Beecher

“ I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. ” - Woody Allen

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

“ When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young. ” - Maya Angelou

“ I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. ” - Jane Austen

“ Books break the shackles of time – proof that humans can work magic. ” - Carl Sagan

“ Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for. ” - Socrates

“ For my whole life, my favorite activity was reading. It’s not the most social pastime. ” - Audrey Hepburn

“ Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. ” - Gary Paulsen

“ [F]rom the reading of ‘good books’ there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way. ” - Gordon B. Hinckley

“ Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. ” - Voltaire

“ How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. ” - Henry David Thoreau

“ Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life. ” - Mortimer J. Adler

“ A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest. ” - C.S. Lewis

“ It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. ” - Arthur Conan Doyle

“ Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. ” - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“ What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows and the lamp burning bright. ” - Gustave Flaubert

“ I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. ” - Wisława Szymborska

“ Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today. ” - Holbrook Jackson

“ You're never too old, too wacky, too wild to pick up a book and read to a child. ” - Anita Merina

“ Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper. ” - David Quammen

“ Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or a duty. It should be offered as a gift. ” - Kate DiCamillo

Want to see hundreds of more book quotes?

• Help Center
• Gift a Book Club
• Beautiful Collections
• Schedule Demo

Book Platform

• Find a Book
• Reading App
• Community Editors

Authors & Illustrators

• Get Your Book Reviewed
• Submit Original Work

Follow Bookroo

15 Great Quotes about the Novel

The best quotations from writers – about the art of the novel

What should a novel be? Writers down the ages have often decreed that the novel should be one thing or another. Here are fifteen of the best quotes from writers about the novel as an art form, as a mode of social enquiry, as a book of questions, and much else besides.

A novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it. – Randall Jarrell

There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be. – Doris Lessing

The novel is the one bright book of life. – D. H. Lawrence

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. – Jane Austen

The only classification of the novel that I can understand is into that which has life and that which has it not. – Henry James

Life resembles a novel more than a novel resembles life. – George Sand

A novel is never anything but a philosophy expressed in images. – Albert Camus

A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no importance. – W. Somerset Maugham

The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. – Ursula Le Guin

If you try to nail anything down, in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail. – D. H. Lawrence

I always start with a title … and then work round different meanings. A novel is, for me, always an elaboration of a title. – Muriel Spark

Novels are about other people and poems are about yourself. – Philip Larkin

A novelist has to know enough about a subject to fool the passenger next to him on an airplane. – David Foster Wallace

More treasure troves of great quotations – about the novel and much else besides – can be found in our compendium of moving and profound quotes from writers (with sources) and our great quotes about poetry .

Image (top):  Jane Austen (author unknown, 1873). Image (bottom): D. H. Lawrence aged 21, author unknown, Wikimedia Commons .

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

Type your email…

2 thoughts on “15 Great Quotes about the Novel”

• Pingback: 15 Great Quotes about the Novel « buildingapoem

I am cracking up at Jane’s blunt comment. Must be the Lizzie Bennet in her coming out.

Comments are closed.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

• lol Badge Feed
• win Badge Feed
• trending Badge Feed

Browse links

• © 2024 BuzzFeed, Inc
• Consent Preferences
• Accessibility Statement

I Rounded Up The 53 Greatest Book Quotes Of All Time Instead Of Reading More

These brilliant minds have some words of wisdom to give you.

BuzzFeed Contributor

"All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity and by delight, we all quote."

That's a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1859 essay "Quotation and Originality." It's not from a book so I couldn't include it on this list, but it does a pretty great job of celebrating a good quote. 

Whether we're shouting out our favorite writers or challenging ourselves with words that we can't get out of our heads, everyone loves a good quote. These are 53 of the best.

53. "I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world." ―Albert Camus, The Stranger

52. "What goes around may come around, but it never ends up exactly the same place, you ever notice? Like a record on a turntable, all it takes is one groove's difference and the universe can be on into a whole 'nother song." ―Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice

51. "We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday." ―Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

50. "Travel far enough, you meet yourself." ―David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

49. "There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth." ―Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

48. "Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry." ―J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

47. "Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful." ―Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

46. "Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." ―Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

45. "One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple." ―Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

44. "I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race — that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant." ―Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

43. "It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way." ―Cheryl Strayed, Wild

42. "He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life." ―James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

41. "Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting." ―Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

40. "If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives." ―Daniel Handler, The Ersatz Elevator

39. "If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content." ―Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

38. "He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink." ―Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

37. "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons." ―Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

36. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." ―Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

35. "Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for." ―Joseph Heller, Catch-22

34. "When you find out you can live without it, go along not thinking about it." ―Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

33. "Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud." ―Yann Martel, Life of Pi

32. "Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future." ―Alan Moore, Watchmen

31. "Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready." ―Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

30. "To die of love is to live by it." ―Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

29. "Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become." ―Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Self-Realization Fellowship)

28. "I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too." ―Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

27. "As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts." ―Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

26. "One day, you will be old enough to start reading fairytales again." ―C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

25. "It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything." ―Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

24. "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.'" ―Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

23. "Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia." ―Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

22. "It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." ―Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

21. "The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water." ―Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

20. "Who, being loved, is poor?" ―Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

19. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." ―Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), The Lorax

18. "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." ―Neil Gaiman, Coraline

17. "Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." ―Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

16. "If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad." ―Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

15. "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." ―J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

14. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration." ― Frank Herbert , Dune

13. "I like good strong words that mean something." ―Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

12. "Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." ―Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

11. "Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are." ―Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

10. "Where there is equality there can be sanity." ―George Orwell, 1984

9. "I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world." ―Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

8. "This above all: to thine own self be true / And it must follow, as the night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man." ―William Shakespeare, Hamlet

7. "Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined." ―Toni Morrison, Beloved

6. "Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it." ―Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

5. "What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human [...] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic." ―David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

4. "Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition." ―James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

3. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." ―F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

2. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […], until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." ―Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

1. "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." ―Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

What's your #1 quote? Let me know in the comments!

Share this article.

36 of the Best Book Lover Quotes for Readers

Neymat Raboobee

When she's not writing, Neymat Raboobee is a copy editor. Her special skills include running in the opposite direction of deadlines and cooing over cats like she's paid to do it. Neymat was born and raised in Durban, South Africa and her dream is to one day move to a place where winter occurs for more than three (3) business days a year. To yell over cats with Neymat, email [email protected]

View All posts by Neymat Raboobee

Still, when people ask why I love books or reading, or why I brighten up every time I spy a bookstore or library, I can’t always find the right words to express myself. Thankfully, several people have already done it for me.

This is a list of 36 book lover quotes that sum up all the mushy gushy feelings within me about books and reading — and hopefully they resonate with you too!

The Best Book Lover Quotes

“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.” ―Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Books were safer than other people anyway.” ―Neil Gaiman,  The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Reality doesn’t always give us the life that we desire, but we can always find what we desire between the pages of books.” ―Adelise M. Cullens

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.” ―Alberto Manguel,  A Reading Diary

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” ―Dr. Seuss,  I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

“You can get lost in any library, no matter the size. But the more lost you are, the more things you’ll find.” ―Millie Florence,  Lydia Green Of Mulberry Glen

“Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.” ―Ben Okri

“I love the sound of the pages flicking against my fingers. Print against fingerprints. Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud.” ―Nnedi Okorafor

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ―Stephen King,  On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” ―Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” ―Carlos Ruiz Zafón,  The Shadow of the Wind

“The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.” ―Mary McLeod Bethune

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” ―George R.R. Martin,  A Dance with Dragons

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

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” ―Jorge Luis Borges

“I believe there is power in words, power in asserting our existence, our experience, our lives, through words.” ―Jesmyn Ward,  The Fire this Time

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” ―Harper Lee,  To Kill a Mockingbird

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.” ―Orhan Pamuk,  The New Life

“No. I can survive well enough on my own — if given the proper reading material.” ―Sarah J. Maas,  Throne of Glass

“Once I began to read, I began to exist. I am what I read.” ―Walter Dean Myers, Open a World of Possible

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.” ―Diane Duane,  So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.” ―David Mitchell,  Cloud Atlas

“I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else’s story, the delicious ache of a last page.” ―Naomi Shihab Nye

“Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.” ―Khaled Hosseini

“It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.” ―Catherynne M. Valente,  The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” ―Lisa Kleypas,  A Wallflower Christmas

“The problem with books is that they end.” ―Caroline Kepnes,  You

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature.” ―Maya Angelou

“In principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.” ―Gail Honeyman,  Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.” ―Arthur Conan Doyle,  The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” ―Jane Austen,  Pride and Prejudice

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” ―Malcolm X,  The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I’ve read a book, I don’t feel like I’ve finished anything. So I start a new one.” ―Elif Shafak,  The Bastard of Istanbul

“Read. Read. Read. Just don’t read one type of book. Read different books by various authors so that you develop different style.” ―R.L. Stine

“In the end, we’ll all become stories.” ―Margaret Atwood, Moral Disorder and Other Stories

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” ―Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Want more book lover quotes? Find the best quotes about books here , our favorite quotes about reading , short romantic book quotes (for weddings, letters, speeches), or the best literary quotes for Instagram captions !

You Might Also Like

88 inspiring quotes about writing a novel

These 88 inspiring quotes about writing, divided into 8 categories, offer inspiration to finish writing a novel:

• Post author By Jordan
• 5 Comments on 88 inspiring quotes about writing a novel

1. Quotes on finding an idea for a novel

Before you write the first word down, before your characters come alive on the page, the initial idea for your novel has to seize your imagination. Well-known writers offer perspectives on writing novel ideas, reasons to write your story, psyching yourself up to write and more:

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. – John Steinbeck

I don’t believe that a writer ‘gets’ (takes into the head) an ‘idea’ (some sort of mental object) ‘from’ somewhere, and then turns it into words, and writes them on paper. At least in my experience, it doesn’t work that way. The stuff has to be transformed into oneself, it has to be composted, before it can grow into a story. – Ursula le Guin

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper. – T.S. Eliot

To write fiction, one needs a whole series of inspirations about people in an actual environment, and then a whole lot of work on the basis of those inspirations. – Aldous Huxley

A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. – Mark Twain

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. – George Orwell

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. – Ernest Hemingway

If a story is in you, it has to come out. – William Faulkner

Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum. – Paulo Coelho

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one. – Salman Rushdie

My standard answer is ‘I don’t know where they come from, but I know where they come to, they come to my desk.’ If I’m not there, they go away again, so you’ve got to sit and think. – Philip Pullman

2. Quotes on planning your first draft

Writing by the seat of your pants (or ‘pantsing’) is something that many writers do. Even so, being methodical and planning the outline of your novel before you write the first draft could get you out of spots where you feel stuck:

First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him! – Ray Bradbury

Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters’ theses. – Stephen King

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. – Zora Neale Hurston

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. – Vladimir Nabokov

You don’t actually have to write anything until you’ve thought it out. This is an enormous relief, and you can sit there searching for the point at which the story becomes a toboggan and starts to slide. – Marie de Nervaud

The scariest moment is always just before you start. – Stephen King

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes. – Agatha Christie

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone. – Zadie Smith

I’m a relatively disciplined writer who composes the whole book before beginning to execute and write it. Of course, you can’t hold – you cannot imagine a whole novel before you write it; there are limits to human memory and imagination. Lots of things come to your mind as you write a book, but again, I make a plan, chapter, know the plot. – Orhan Pamuk

A goal without a plan is just a wish. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

3. Quotes on writing your first draft

So you have a novel idea that inspires you and you’ve planned to the point that you feel empowered to start writing. This is where a disciplined writing routine will help you to begin fleshing out your idea:

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good. – William Faulkner

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. – Barbara Kingsolver

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. – Kurt Vonnegut

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. – Silvia Plath

The first draft of anything is shit. – Ernest Hemingway

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed. – Ray Bradbury

For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I’m surprised where the journey takes me. – Jack Dann

My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it. – Ernest Hemingway

My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see. – Joseph Conrad

You can’t wait for inspiration . You have to go after it with a club. – Jack London

4. Quotes on revising what you have written

Revising what you have written can be a deeply gratifying process and is a crucial step as you finish writing a novel. There might be the occasional section where you wince at an awkward construction or a common cliché, but there will equally be sentences, paragraphs, or whole chapters where you feel a growing sense of achievement:

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it … – Michael Crichton

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. – Anthony Trollope

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes. – Andre Gide

A good book isn’t written, it’s rewritten. – Phyllis A. Whitney

When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done. – Stephen King

Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts. – Larry L. King

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. – Elmore Leonard

It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it. – Jack Kerouac

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. – Saul Bellow

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. – Anton Chekhov

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? – George Orwell

5. Quotes on editing your novel (or being edited)

Many writers see editing as a thankless task. If you cannot afford to hire an editor or intend to edit your own work for another reason, the editing advice of famous authors could help you become a better editor. Having a fresh pair of eyes to look over your work is useful:

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. All they do is show you’ve been to college. – Kurt Vonnegut

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke… – F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is perfectly okay to write garbage–as long as you edit brilliantly. – C.J. Cherry

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. – Franz Kafka

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. – Mark Twain

What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish. – Thomas Wolfe

In writing, you must kill all your darlings. – William Faulkner

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it. – Mark Twain

The things that the novel does not say are necessarily more numerous than those it does say and only a special halo around what is written can give the illusion that you are reading also what is not written. – Italo Calvino

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. – Colette

Only a mediocre person is always at his best. – W. Somerset Maugham

6. Quotes on seeing it all come together

Seeing your complete novel coming together, the different parts weaving into a narrative that tells a distinct story, is one of the most rewarding stages of the novel-writing process:

You always get more respect when you don’t have a happy ending. – Julia Quinn

The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written. – Joyce Carol Oates

No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons. – Ishmael Reed

When I complete a novel I set it aside, and begin work on short stories, and eventually another long work. When I complete that novel I return to the earlier novel and rewrite much of it. In the meantime the second novel lies in a desk drawer. – Joyce Carol Oates

I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it needs softening. Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can’t be done abruptly. – Colm Toibin

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story. – Frank Herbert

As much as I like it when a book I’m writing speeds along, the downside can be that an author becomes too eager to finish and rushes the end. The end is even more important than the first page, and rushing can damage it. – David Morrell

Most authors liken the struggle of writing to something mighty and macho, like wrestling a bear. Writing a book is nothing like that. It is a small, slow crawl to the finish line. Honestly, I have moments when I don’t even care if anyone reads this book. I just want to finish it. – Amy Poehler

At the end of Slaughterhouse-Five … I had a shutting-off feeling … that I had done what I was supposed to do and everything was OK.” – Kurt Vonnegut

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. – Douglas Adams

Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It’s one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period. – Nicholas Sparks

7. Quotes on coping with publishers turning down your manuscript

Services such as Amazon’s Kindle Store and Scribd make it easier than ever for writer’s to self-publish their works digitally. Persistence, understanding of the industry and a thick skin are essential if you opt for the traditional publishing route.

This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address. – Barbara Kingsolver

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. – Cyril Connolly

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer. – Ray Bradbury

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist. – Isaac Asimov

If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’. – David Mitchell

Don’t listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won’t be one of them. Don’t listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don’t have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. – Robin Hobb

You are never stronger…than when you land on the other side of despair. – Zadie Smith

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. – J.K. Rowling

I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it. – George Bernard Shaw

I love my rejection slips. They show me I try. – Sylvia Plath

You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday. – Jonathan Swift

8. Quotes on being published

Finishing the task and having told your story to the best of your ability is a major achievement in itself. Once your manuscript has been accepted or you have self-published a whole new promotion process begins. Following insider advice on book promotion will help you to reach a broader reading public and grow a base of fans:

A writer should say to himself, not ‘How can I get more money?’ but ‘How can I reach more readers without lowering standards? – Brian Aldiss

Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money. – Virginia Woolf

Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be. – Margaret Atwood

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him. – Edna St. Vincent Millay

An author who gives a manager or publisher any rights in his work except those immediately and specifically required for its publication or performance is for business purposes an imbecile. – George Bernard Shaw

I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers. – Vladimir Nabokov

If you don’t put 99 percent of yourself into the writing, there will be no publishing career. There’s the writer and there’s the author. The author—you don’t ever think about the author. Just think about the writer. So my advice would be, find a way to not care—easier said than done. Accept that the world may never notice this thing you worked so hard at. And instead, do it for it, find a job, find a way of living that gives you an hour or two or three a day to do it, and then work your ass off sending out, trying to get out there, but do not put the pressure on the work to do something for you. – Andre Dubus III

Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good. – Thomas Wolfe

The publishing world is very timid. Readers are much braver. – Kiran Desai

In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it. – G.K Chesterton

I publish my own books, so there isn’t a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house. – Dave Eggers

Are you writing a novel? Get help developing and finishing the story you’re dying to tell .

Feel free to share your favourite inspirational quotes about writing in the comments below!

Related Posts:

• Finding an inspiring story premise: 6 sources
• Helpful writing quotes: An A to Z of authors' advice
• Build confidence in writing: 21 motivating quotes
• Tags editing , publishing , quotes , revising , story ideas

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

5 replies on “88 inspiring quotes about writing a novel”

This is truly inspiring. Thanks!

[…] Reading how other novelists have coped. I discovered that other authors have had a similar experience. Of particular comfort is Frank Herbert’s sage comment, “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” (quoted from “Finish writing a novel: 88 quotes that will help.” […]

[…] Whereas, for that, the first thing you have to do is ‘writing’. The famous saying of Vladimir Nabokov is “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, […]

Beautiful quotes and very inspiring.

Thank you, Alisha, I’m glad they inspired you. Thanks for reading.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Pin It on Pinterest