Famous Quotes & Sayings

C. S. Lewis

One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting.

C. S. Lewis

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only.

C. S. Lewis

I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say "at last", I almost wish he had lived to write six books more as he had hoped to do — so much have I enjoyed it.

C. S. Lewis

Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.

C. S. Lewis

What does seem to me poisonous, what breeds a type of patriotism that is pernicious if it lasts but not likely to last long in an educated adult, is the perfectly serious indoctrination of the young in knowably false or biased history - the heroic legend drably disguised as text-book fact. With this creeps in the tacit assumption that other nations have not equally their heroes; perhaps even the belief - surely it is very bad biology - that we can literally 'inherit' tradition.

C. S. Lewis

I never exactly made a book. It's rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say.

C. S. Lewis

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

Catullus

To whom do I give my new elegant little book? Cui dono lepidum novum libellum?

Cecelia Ahern

I think that most people go to bookshops and have no idea what they want to buy. Somehow the books sit there, almost magically willing people to pick them up. The right person for the right book. Its as though they know whose life they need to be a part of, how they can make a difference, how they can teach a lesson, put a smile on a face at just the right time.

Cecelia Ahern

I always want my books to reach a positive point in the end.

Cecelia Ahern

Whenever I go to Germany I find that my readers have T-shirts with my book covers printed on them. They come to all the events, they have gifts and they come with their families. They are always very open to sharing their personal stories.

Cecelia Ahern

Yesterday was a closed book, tomorrow, however, was another story.

Carrie Coon

I'm a big reader, so I tend to already know the books when they're adapted into something.

Carrie Brownstein

The fact that people go to Portland to visit a tiny feminist bookstore-no matter what the impetus is for them getting there-the fact that they go in there and look around and shop for books or stationery or whatever, is a major source of pride for me,

Carrie Underwood

Before bed, I read a book or flip on the radio - I'm not picky, I'll just turn it on and see what comes up. I burn a yummy lavender- scented candle.

Carl Perkins

I only know two cats in this business that really had it all; Elvis was one of those guys, the other was Ricky Nelson. There was a difference in those two guys though. Elvis moved...Ricky never had to; he stood flat footed and captivated his audience with his good looks. We grew up with him; those who didn't missed something. History books are gonna have to say that he played a big role in Rock 'n' Roll music.... and he did it his way.

Carl Reiner

I love tweeting. I tweet every day. I stay in contact, I tell them what I'm doing. I've posted pictures of my books on there and they buy the books. It's a very good way to communicate with people, but I can't go to bed without tweeting something. I have to tweet something.

Carl Reiner

I write books that way - I put a first line down and say, "Where does this go?"

Carl Sagan

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. ... Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic

Carl Sagan

What an astonishing thing a book is.

Carl Sagan

'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'

Carl Sagan

Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors.

Carl Sagan

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of magic.

Carl Sagan

It took the Church until 1832 to remove Galileo 's work from its list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read at the risk of dire punishment of their immortal souls.

Carl Sagan

Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society.

Bill Bryson

To me, the greatest invention of my lifetime is the laptop computer and the fact that I can be working on a book and be in an airport lounge, in a hotel room, and continue working; I fire up my laptop, and I'm in exactly the same place I was when I left home - that, to me, is a miracle.

Bill Bryson

For most of us the rules of English grammar are at best a dimly remembered thing. But even for those who make the rules, grammatical correctitude sometimes proves easier to urge than to achieve. Among the errors cited in this book are a number committed by some of the leading authorities of this century. If men such as Fowler and Bernstein and Quirk and Howard cannot always get their English right, is it reasonable to expect the rest of us to?

Bill Bryson

If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.

Betsy Byars

For me, reading books and writing them are tied together. The words of other writers teach me and refresh me and inspire me.

Betsy Byars

When I type a title page, I hold it and I look at it and I think, I just need four thousand sentences to go with this and I’ll have a book.

Bethenny Frankel

My books have helped a lot of men to lose weight.

Bethenny Frankel

My recipes aren't geared towards women; my books are marketed towards women because women are the biggest market for weight loss, weight management and weight maintenance and for cooking.

Bethany Hamilton

Doing everything with one arm, being well-known, and having a book and a movie, it's fairly abnormal. As far as just not having to worry about past experiences, I've healed very well.