Famous Quotes & Sayings

Siri Hustvedt

While reading 'David Copperfield' in the middle of the night - probably because of the light, I had insomnia for the first time - I looked out of the window and thought, 'If this is what books can do, this is what I want to do.'

Books guided my life from high school, and the greatest, most interesting, most provocative, funniest, smartest people who ever lived in the last 200 or 300 years wrote those books. I would fall in love with Victor Hugo and read not just 'Les Miserables,' but 'Bug-Jargal' and 'The Toilers of the Sea' and so forth.

The defensive playbook is the size of a phone book. We didn't even get through the first letter of the alphabet.

Whitley Strieber

To make a long story short: the way I work out my fears is in the fiction. The results of that work go into the books of fact.

To limit the press is to insult a nation ; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves

Yeah, that's good. I don't want to go down in the history books for that. I want to be the first guy to lose 19 and come back and win 19.

We need to write books that publicists and marketers and booksellers and book club leaders and librarians and readers can get excited about. That have something about them that makes them stand out. That makes them shine.

Helen Fielding

I've had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn't get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull.

Hans Jonas

To me, it was a sad fate to have been born into a period and a world where everything was in tip-top order, and the only real excitement was to be found in history books and occasionally also in the paper.

Not as ours the books of old - Things that steam can stamp and fold; Not as ours the books of yore - Rows of type, and nothing more.

Greg Graffin

I got interested in palaeontology and vertebrate history - sparked by books on human evolution - then vertebrate evolution. Studying with palaeontologists kindled my interest in fieldwork.

We had to struggle to find crimes in the books that fit the conduct here.

We're up there (in the ranks of weird spots and stories). Of all the books I've written, this one was the easiest. I could have written four times as much.

Philip Reeve

I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.

Octavia Butler

While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything.

P. C. Cast

With a young-adult series, you need to get a lot of books out on the market quickly. Teenagers aren't going to wait years and years for the next book.

Philippe Petit

I needed more knowledge in rigging and knotting. I started collecting books on knots and really learning more and more. That's how it started. And also in magic, of course. With a piece of rope, you can do magic.

Deborah Harkness

As a historian, I love every little detail, but whole long passages about wood paneling and journeys on horseback and every stop at every inn had to go out the window. I decided the history in the books should be like spice in a soup - a little went a long way. Like cilantro.

Deborah Harkness

I teach 18- to 21-year-olds - the 'Harry Potter' generation. They grew up as voracious readers, reading books in this exploding genre. But at some point, I would love for them to give Umberto Eco or A.S. Byatt a try. I hope 'A Discovery of Witches' will serve as a kind of stepping-stone.

Deb Caletti

I wrote one book, signed with a good agent, and sat back and waited for the phone to ring. I was sure that the great news would come at any moment. Four books later, I finally got that call.

Caroline Leavitt

I love real books, paper books, but I also love buying online, and I think that people are more willing to take a chance to read something if it's cheaper - sometimes books on the Kindle are $6. A hardback book is $25. For $25, it better be a really great book. Or you're going to be mad.

Bill Gross

Without a blockbuster of a program in his second term it is unlikely that Bush can go very far in the history books on the back of a paltry 3 or 4 percentage point tax cut for the rich.

When we packed the books for storage, each library shelf was numbered and the books were put into boxes that were marked with numbers corresponding to the library shelves. Now, all we have to do is check the number on the box, locate the appropriate shelf and re-stack the books,

John Updike

When I went away to college, I marveled at the wealth of bookstores around Harvard Square.

Anita Diament

The President of the Reform Movement started a literacy project and said everyone should be reading at least four Jewish books a year.

There have always been books published for teens that push the margins,

Expectations for a strong first quarter shored up buying in technology shares. We also saw fund managers buy (chip) testing-packaging stocks before they close their books for the year.

The real story is the dramatic growth of used trade books through online channels.

There are many, many new laws -- things that are on the books that we don't all understand or know about and so we need to investigate and determine if there was a law that was broken.

David D. Burns

The stereotype of psychotherapy portrayed in popular books and movies is lying on the couch and saying whatever comes into your mind, while a kindly psychoanalyst listens and nods knowingly from time to time. After years and years, something wonderful is supposed to happen.

David Gerrold

There's two tiers of science fiction: the McDonalds sci-fi like Star Trek, where they have an adventure and solve it before the last commercial, and there are books that once you've read, you never look at the world the same way again.

David Morrell

Remember that just because major publishing is having trouble, that doesn't mean people have stopped reading books. Printed books won't go away, but ebooks won't go away, either.

Don Lemon

I do feel that Paula Deen should not have lost her job, and I've said this on the air. The marketplace should have decided. The marketplace decided something different. Her books are No. 1.