Famous Quotes & Sayings

Nick Hornby

I write the books I want to write, and readers will either respond or not respond.

Bill Vaughan

In the electronic age, books, words and reading are not likely to remain sufficiently authoritative and central to knowledge to justify literature.

Bill Vaughan

The easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author is obscure and difficult in his own language, certainly does not think clearly.

Bill Vaughan

I never thought I would just be doing Arkady books.

Bill Vaughan

I've got a book of poetry by the bed, one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans.

Bill Vaughan

Most people - and particularly people whose lives have nothing to do with books at all - are intrigued by the idea that somebody wants to listen to them and get it right.

Bill Vaughan

You'll accidentally find in barrows of books wrought-iron lines of long-buried poems, handle them with the care that respects ancient but terrible weapons.. .

Bill Vaughan

The guru, if he is gifted, reads the story as any bilingual person might. He does not translate-he understands.

Bill Vaughan

My son, who's on the spectrum is a very rigid thinker. He needs clear-cut definitions of right and wrong. Anything hazy or gray confuses him. For instance, if I try to get him to see that a friend behaved badly, he'll often get upset with me because a friend is a 'good guy' by definition, in his book.

Bill Bryson

I really enjoy going to a library and spending the day doing research - to me that is the most pleasurable part of writing the science book.

Bill Bryson

The first book I did - the first successful book - was a kind of a travel book, and publishers in Britain encouraged me to do more.

Bill Bryson

Anyone who has read my books will know that I don't tend to use guides when I am travelling. It's not a pride thing, but it is certainly a fact.

Bill Burr

Carnegie Hall is as good as they say it is. It's not like Stonehenge which looks great in books but then you go there and it's a pile of rocks next to a highway. There's actually a highway right next to it, but you don't see that in pictures.

Bill Hicks

The waitress comes over to me like, 'What'chu readin' for?' I had never been asked that. Not 'What am I reading?' but 'What am I reading for?' Goddammit, you stumped me. Hmm, why do I read? I suppose I read for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being so I don't end up being a... waffle waitress.

Bertrand Russell

Beware the man of the single book

Bertrand Russell

If a law were passed giving six months to every writer of a first book, only the good ones would do it.

Bertrand Russell

It appeared that after first contemplating a book on some subject, and after giving serious preliminary attention to it, I needed a period of subconscious incubation which could not be hurried and was if anything impeded by deliberate thinking.... Having, by a time of very intense concentration, planted the problem in my subconsciousness, it would germinate underground until, suddenly, the solution emerged with a blinding clarity, so that it only remained to write down what happened as if in a revelation.

Bertrand Russell

All great books contain boring portions, and all great lives have contained uninteresting stretches.

Bertrand Russell

It is impossible to read in America, except on a train, because of the telephone. Everyone has a telephone, and it rings all day and most of the night.

That whole 10-day period in Melbourne 2002 will go down in the history books as the most popular two points ever scored in Formula One.

Maeve Binchy

That's the kind of motif I bring to the books - that people take charge of their own lives.

Steve Miller

That's been a really good breeding ground for them this year ... It's one for the record books for sure.

I was pretty sure when we made the first 'Carl' book that we had a good idea, but I couldn't have imagined how popular Carl would become. I continue to be grateful for and touched by the extent to which he is known and loved.

I was reading a book and found myself crashing into the person opposite me. The train was going over and over and over, and people were thrown onto the floor.

It gets the serotonin working, and it's not super taxing. It puts life in perspective. You see things passing by and the majesty and timelessness of world. And it's totally free. Taking a book or a CD player or reading or writing for few hours is really taking nice care of yourself. When you're in a relationship you don't get around to doing that.

It has a lot of truck space for Dad's golf clubs and our book bags.

I think those books do have the same feeling as the big movies. You know you're going to get lost in this world. A shorter book can't quite do that.

Rebecca Stead

I think that's one of the most important things that books do: not to teach you anything, but to help you teach yourself by just being in the world of the book and having your own thoughts and reactions and noticing your own reactions and thoughts and learning about yourself that way.

John Faso

I think someone gave it to him out of a briefing book, and he's just not as familiar with New York as I am.

Ron Carlson

I was writing a third novel when my kids arrived. And I looked at that book about whether these two people would get together, and I thought, 'I don't care! I've got kids!'

Michael Morpurgo

Marry someone who flatters you. Because I've written 80 books since 'War Horse' but when my wife reads one, all she says is, 'It's quite good, but it's not as good as 'War Horse,' is it?'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs / Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there / At this or that box, pulling through the gap, / In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, / The first book first.

Jean Fritz

My mother had been a Latin teacher, and she was always very fascinated with words. She and I shared books and responded to them.