118 quotes found
“School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, ...”
“The sun burnt every day. It burnt time.”
“He stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would alwa...”
“Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping i...”
“We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law.”
“I know, i know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was younger I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the times I wa...”
“Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There's nothing magical in them at all. Magic is only what books mean, what books say. How the...”
“There must be something in books, things we can't imagine.”
“But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.”
“Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal.And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day, every day, sleeping its l...”
“Come on, get up, get up, you can't just sit! But he was still crying and that had to be finished.”
“There must be something in books, something we cant imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You dont stay for nothing.”
“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.”
“The books are to remind us what asses and fool we are. They're Caeser's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, "Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal." Most of us can't rush ...”
“We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out i...”
“I ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch. I tore out the pages, ate them with salt, doused them with relish, gnawed on the bindings, turned t...”
“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.”
“These are all novels, all about people that never existed, the people that read them it makes them unhappy with their own lives. Makes them want to live in other ways they can never really be.”
“Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairl...”
“Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damm insane mistakes!”
