Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticizing. Criticism can never be a science: it is, in the first place, much too personal, and in the second, it is concerned with v...
[after telling Harry to close his eyes, Ginny hides his book somewhere in the Room of Requirement, then comes back, and gives him a soft kiss on the lips] Ginny Weasley: That can stay hidden up here too, if you like. [a short time later, Harry is wal...
Jefferson Smith: You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading The Land of the Free in history books. Then they get to be men they forget even more. Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold ...
Bastian: I know books, I have 186 of them at home. Mr. Koreander: Ah, comic books. Bastian: No, I've read Treasure Island, The Last of the Mohicans, Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Tarzan. Mr. Koreander: Whoa whoa whoa,...
Macaulay Connor: What's this? Is it my book? C. K. Dexter Haven: Yes. Macaulay Connor: C. K. Dexter Haven you have unsuspected depth! C. K. Dexter Haven: Thanks, old chap. Macaulay Connor: But have you read it? C. K. Dexter Haven: When I was trying t...
Emile: W-w-wait. You... read? Remy: Well, not... excessively. Emile: Oh, man. Does dad know? Remy: You could fill a book - a lot of books - with things Dad doesn't know. And they have. Which is why I read. Which is also our secret. Emile: I don't lik...
Professor Jules Hilbert: No, why did you change the book? Kay Eiffel: Lots of reasons. I realized I just couldn't do it. Professor Jules Hilbert: Because he's real? Kay Eiffel: Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die and th...
Noah Dietrich: I've gotta tell you, the board over in Houston has been getting a little concerned about the cost of this operation out here. Howard Hughes: [grimacing] Ah! Would you stop showing them the books, Noah? Noah Dietrich: That's illegal How...
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and l...
The worst feature of the Common Core is its anti-humanistic, utilitarian approach to education. It mistakes what a child is and what a human being is for. That is why it has no use for poetry, and why it boils the study of literature down to the scra...
Imagine that you are stuck on a long train ride and must choose one of two books to read in order to pass the time: the first is a novel whose main character is an office worker who is essentially working to pay his monthly cable bill; the second is ...
And the non-reading of books, you will object, should be characteristic of all collectors? This is news to me, you may say. It is not news at all. experts will bear me out when I say that it is the oldest thing in the world. Suffice it to quote the a...
My mother used to read to me every night when I was little. We got through most of the major fantasy books of that time. The Narnia books by C.S. Lewis were my favorites and, later, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I started making dolls to fill in t...
Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this because it is the key to making art, and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life. Every time I have set out to translate the boo...
He had in his Bronx apartment a lodger less learned than himself, and much fiercer in piety. One day when we were studying the laws of repentance together, the lodger burst from his room. "What!" he said. "The atheists guzzles his whiskey and eats po...
Do you remember the books from our childhood? Those were you could decide yourself what the character should do next? I always loved those books, getting to decide what will happen, being responsible for it. But did you ever decided for something, fl...
My view of writing "Coldest Girl in Coldtown" was to take every single thing that I loved from every vampire book I had ever read and dump it into one book--everything I like--trying to evoke some of the decadence… Vampires are a high-class monster...
[last lines] Death: I have seen a great many things. I have attended all the world's worst disasters, and worked for the greatest of villains. And I've seen the greatest wonders. But it's still like I said it was: no one lives forever. Death: When I ...
Books are like bound dreams waiting to be released
Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is.
When he read, he forgot that he was waiting.