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BOOKS

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see: "AUTHORS"
see: "JOURNALISM"
see: "LETTERS"
see: "PEN (THE)"
see: "POETRY"
see: "STYLE"
see: "WORDS"
see: "WRITING"
see "KNOWLEDGE" for other related links


If you are reading in order to become a better reader,
you cannot read just any book or article. You will
not improve as a reader if all you read are books that
are well within your capacity. You must tackle books
that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that
are over your head. Only books of that sort will make
you stretch your mind.
--Mortimer J. Adler (1902—2001)
American philosopher, educator, and editor.
_How to Read a Book_ [1940]
"Reading and the Growth of the Mind"

That is a good book which is opened with
expectation and closed with profit.
--[Amos] Bronson Alcott (1799—1888)
American philosopher, teacher, and reformer;
father of Louisa May Alcott.
_Table Talk_ [1877], bk. 1

Timeo hominem unius libri.
(Beware of the man of one book.)
--St. Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274)
Catholic philosopher and theologian.

-

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of
age, that age appears to be best in four things — old
wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to
trust, and old authors to read.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Apothegms_ [1624], No. 97


Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some
books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but
not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with
diligence and attention. Some books may also be read
by deputy, and extracts made of them by others.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
"Of Studies", _Essays_ [1625]

-

You think your pain and your heartbreak
are unprecedented in the history of the
world, but then you read. It was books
that taught me that the things that
tormented me most were the very things
that connected me with all the people
who were alive, or who had ever been
alive.
--James Baldwin (1924—1987)
American author and playwright.

-

Books are not made for furniture, but there
is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes
a house.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister;
[brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.]


Where is human nature so weak as
in the bookstore!
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister;
[brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.]
"Subtleties of Book Buyers" _Star Papers_ [1855]

-

The covers of this book are too far apart.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.

There are persons who honestly do not see
the use of books in the home, either for
information — have they not radio and even
television? — or for decoration — is there
not the wallpaper?
--Pearl S. Buck (1892—1973)
American author noted for her novels of life in China;
winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature.
"In Search of Readers" in
Helen Hull _The Writer's Book_ [1950].

Finishing a book is just like you took a
child out in the back yard and shot it.
--Truman Capote (1924—1984)
American writer and novelist.

The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self activity.
--Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881)
Scottish historian and political philosopher.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior
minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the
reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their
most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.
--William Ellery Channing (1780—1842)
American Unitarian clergyman and author.

After three days without reading,
talk becomes flavorless.
--Chinese Proverb

A home without books is a body without soul.
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.

[Santiago] swept the floor with his jacket and lay
down, using the book he had just finished reading
as a pillow. He told himself that he would have
to start reading thicker books: they lasted longer,
and made more comfortable pillows.
--Paulo Coelho (1947— )
Brazilian lyricist and novelist.
_The Alchemist_ [1993], Part 1

Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though
it is better to know them thoroughly, than to know them
only here and there; yet it is a good work to give a little
to those who have neither the time nor means to get
more. Let every book-worm, when, in any fragrant
scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story,
an illustration that does his heart good, hasten to
give it.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)
English poet, critic, and philosopher.

-

He that studies books alone, will know how things
ought to be; and he that studies men will know
how things are.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.


Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition
is that of good books.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.


We should have a glorious conflagration if all who
cannot put fire into their works would only consent
to put their works into the fire.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.

-

Wouldst thou find my ashes? Look
In the pages of my book;
And, as these thy hands doth turn,
Know here is my funeral urn.
--Adelaide Crapsey (1878—1914)
American poet.
"The Immortal Residue" [1915]

Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly,
and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and
scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-
taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately,
or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at
command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines —
not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and
enjoyed more often in thought than in reality.
--Robertson Davies (1913—1995)
Canadian author and playwright.
_Tempest-Tost_ [1951], ch. 6

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing
else that he builds ever lasts monuments fall; nations perish;
civilization grow old and die out; new races build others. But in
the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again
and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they
were written, still telling men's hearts, of the hearts of men
centuries dead....
--Clarence Day (1874—1935)
American author.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation
with the finest men of past centuries.
--Renι Descartes (1596—1650)
French philosopher and mathematician.
_Discours de la mιthode_ [1637] (Discourse on Method)

-

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

--Emily Dickinson (1830—1886)
American poet.
[c. 1873]

-

The medicine of the mind.
--Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century B.C.)
Sicilian-born Greek historian.

-

Memoirs are inherently wistful, but Larry McMurtry's
reminiscences of his life with books — not as a
novelist but as a reader, book scout, and bookstore
owner — are especially valedictory. Nearly every
page sounds a note of farewell, of stoic, weary
resignation, of time running out.

While McMurtry's voice remains modest, low-key,
and immensely sympathetic, no amount of charm can
disguise a pervasive melancholy in his pages. As
he says, "A bookman's love of books is a love of
books, not merely of the information in them."

But, he fears, the age of eagerly turned pages is
passing: Today the sight that discourages book
people most is to walk into a public library and
see computers where books used to be.

In many cases not even the librarians want books to
be there. What consumers want now is information,
and information increasingly comes from computers.
That is a preference I can't grasp, much less share,
though I'm well aware that computers have many valid
uses. They save lives, and they make research in
most cases a thing that's almost instantaneous.
They do many good things.

But they don't really do what books do, and why
should they usurp the chief function of a public
library, which is to provide readers access to
books? Books can accommodate the proximity of
computers but it doesn't seem to work the other
way around. Computers now literally drive out
books from the place that should, by definition,
be books' own home: the library.

--Michael Dirda (1948— )
(In a book review of Larry McMurtry's _Books:
A Memoir_ [2008]) _The New York Review of
Books_ [August 14, 2008], "The Treasure Hunter."

-

There is more treasure in books than in all the
pirates loot on treasure island and best of all
you can enjoy them every day of your life.
--Walt Disney (1901—1966)
American film producer, cartoon artist and
the creator of Disneyland.

Men love books better which please them than those
which instruct. Since their ennui troubles them more
than their ignorance, they prefer being amused to
being informed.
--Jean-Antoine Dubois (1765—1848)
French missionary in India.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too
much from its creative pursuits. Any man who
read too much and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends,
and the most patient of teachers.
--Charles William Eliot (1834—1926)
American educator and president of
Harvard University [1869—1909].
"The Durable Satisfactions of Life"

-

Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library:
a company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be
picked out of all civil countries in a thousand years.
The thought which they did not uncover to their bosom
friend is here written out in transparent words to us,
the strangers of another age.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.


The profit of books is according to the sensibility
of the reader. The profoundest thought or passion
sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart
finds and publishes it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Letters and Social Aims_ [1876] "Quotation and Originality"


Men over forty are no judges of a
book written in a new spirit.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Lectures and Biographical Sketches_ [1883]
"The Man of Letters"

-

When I have a little money, I buy books — if
any is left, I buy food and clothes.
--Desiderius Erasmus (1469—1536)
Dutch humanist and theologian.

When you reread a classic you do not see more
in the book than you did before; you see more
in *you* than there was before.
--Clifton Fadiman (1904—1999)
American critic and author.
_Any Number Can Play_ [1957]

We are as liable to be corrupted by books as by companions.
--Henry Fielding (1707—1754)
English novelist and dramatist.

I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for
which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down
our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
--E.M. [Edward Morgan] Forster (1879—1970)
English novelist.
_Two Cheers for Democracy_ [1951]

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the
only books I have in my library are those that other
people have lent me.
--Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924)
French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1921.
_La vie littιraire_ [1888]

A house is no home unless it contain food and fire
for the mind as well as for the body.
--[Sarah] Margaret Fuller (1810—1850)
American critic, teacher, and woman of letters.

I have asked Mr Bernstein,
who is an excellent blesser
to bless you all and say
that in a country where Illiteracy is on the rise
and the economy is sinking low
and Chastity is out the window
it is comforting to know
that though the frost is on the pumpkin
and civilization is on the skids
you guys are ferociously working underground
smuggling books into the hands of kids.
--Theodor Seuss Geisel [Dr. Seuss] (1904—1991)
American writer and illustrator of children's books.
'A Rather Short Epic Poem (size 6 and 7/8)'
delivered by Robert Bernstein at the American
Booksellers Association meeting [1988].

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be —
I had a mother who read to me.
--Strickland Gillian (1869—1954)
"The Reading Mother"

Books are a delightful society. If you go into a room
filled with books, even without taking them down from
their shelves, they seem to speak to you, to welcome
you, to tell you that they have something inside their
covers that will be good for you, and that they are
willing and desirous to impart it to you.
--William Gladstone (1809—1898)
British Liberal statesman, Prime Minister
[1868—1874, 1880—1885, 1892—1894].

Books won't stay banned. They won't
burn. Ideas won't go to jail.
--Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906—1963)
American historian and educator.
_Essays on Education_ [1954]

-

Thank you for sending me a copy of your
book — I'll waste no time reading it.
--Moses Hadas (1900—1966)
Professor, Columbia University,
literary classicist, and writer.


This book fills a much-needed gap.
--Moses Hadas (1900—1966)
Professor, Columbia University,
literary classicist, and writer.


I have read your book and much like it.
--Moses Hadas (1900—1966)
Professor, Columbia University,
literary classicist, and writer.

-

In a very real sense, people who have read good
literature have lived more than people who cannot
or will not read.... It is not true that we have
only one life to live; if we can read, we can live
as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as
we wish.
--S. I. (Samuel Ichiye) Hayakawa (1906—1992)
English professor and academic; U.S. Senator
from California [1977—1983].

From your parents you learn love and laughter
and how to put one foot before the other. But
when books are opened you discover you have
wings.
--Helen Hayes (1900—1993)
One of the most popular American stage
actresses of the 2oth century.

If you would understand your own age, read the works
of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.
--Sir Arthur Helps (1813—1875)
English writer and clerk of the Privy Council.
In Connie Robertson
_The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations_ p. 165 [1998].

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.
--Claude-Adrien Helvιtius (1715—1771)
French philosopher

What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed
with the feeling that there are a thousand new books
he ought to read, while life is only long enough for
him to attempt to read a hundred?
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_Over the Teacups_ [1891], Chapter 7

Be as careful of the books you read as of
the company you keep, for your habits
and character will be as much influenced
by the former as the latter.
--Edwin Paxton Hood (1820—1885)
English Congregational minister and writer.

It is just those books which a man possesses,
but does not read, which constitute the most
suspicious evidence against him.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.

-

I cannot live without books.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to John Adams [10 June 1815].


Books constitute capital. A literary book lasts as long
as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an
article of mere consumption but fairly of capital. and
often in the case of professional men, setting out in
life, it is their only capital.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to James Madison [September 1821].

-

-

"Paradise Lost" is one of the books which the reader
admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again.
None ever wished it longer than it is.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
_Lives of the English Poets_ "Milton" [1781]


I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is
a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which
happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great
deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a
book. He’ll get better books afterwards.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_
"16 April 1779" [1791].

-

You are the same today that you are going to be five
years from now except for two things: the people with
whom you associate, and the books you read.
--Charles Jones

Fiction is truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one
in the world knew what truth was till somebody
had told a story.
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
_A Book of Words_ "Fiction" [1928]

-

Your borrowers of books — those mutilators of
collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves,
and creators of odd volumes.
--Charles Lamb (1775—1834)
English essayist.
_Essays of Elia_ [1823]
"The Two Races of Men"


There is more reason for saying grace before
a new book than before dinner.
--Charles Lamb (1775—1834)
English essayist.
_Essays of Elia_ [1823]
"Grace Before Meat"

-

-

The book has been man's greatest triumph. Seated
in my library, I live in a time machine. In an
instant I can be transmitted to any era, any part
of the world, even to outer space.

I have lived in every period of history. I have
listened to Buddha speak, marched with Alexander,
sailed with the Vikings, ridden in canoes with the
Polynesians. I have been at the courts of Queen
Elizabeth and Louis XIV; I have been a friend to
Captain Nemo and have sailed with Captain Bligh on
the Bounty. I have walked in the agora with
Socrates and Plato, and listened to Jesus deliver
the Sermon on the Mount.

Best of all, I can do it all again, at any moment.
The books are there. I have only to reach up to
the shelves and take them down to relive the
moments I have loved.

--Louis L'Amour [Louis Dearborn LaMoore] (1908—1988)
American author of Western fiction.
_The Sackett Companion_

-

The writings of the wise are the only
riches our posterity cannot squander.
--Walter Savage Landor (1775—1864)
English poet.

A beginning, a muddle, and an end.
(On the classic formula for a novel.)
--Philip Larkin (1922—1985)
English poet.
In "New Fiction" [January 1978].

A book is a mirror: when a monkey looks in,
no apostle can look out.
--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742—1799)
German scientist and drama critic.
_Aphorisms_ [1775—1779]

-

The things I want to know are in books;
my best friend is the man who'll get me
a book I ain't read.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].


Books serve to show a man that those original
thoughts of his aren't very new after all.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].


[Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in November, 1862:]
So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made
this great war!
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Quoted in McClure's Magazine [April 1911].

-

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky.
My pile of books
Are a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!
I'll have a long beard
By the time I read them.
--Arnold Lobel ( —1987)
Author of children's books.

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_The Masque of Pandora_ [1875] "Morituri Salutamus"

-

All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut or you can drug, with words.
--Amy Lowell (1874—1925)
American poet. Posthumously won the
Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1926.
"Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds" [1914]


For books are more than books, they are the life
The very heart and core of ages past,
The reason why men lived and worked and died,
The essence and quintessence of their lives.
--Amy Lowell (1874—1925)
American poet. Posthumously won the
Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1926.
_A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass_ [1912] "The Boston Athenaeum"

-

A room without books is as a body without a soul.
--Sir John Lubbock (1834—1913)
The First Lord and Baron Avebury who was a
British banker, politician, and archaeologist.

'Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are'
is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me
what you re-read.
--Franηois Mauriac (1885—1970)
French poet, novelist, and dramatist.

The reason why borrowed books are so seldom returned
to their owners is that it is much easier to retain the
books than what is in them.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.

When you sell a man a book
You don't sell him just twelve ounces
Of paper and ink and glue —
You sell him a whole new life.
--Christopher Morley (1890—1957)
American journalist, novelist, and poet.

As sheer casual reading matter, I still find the English
dictionary the most interesting book in our language.
--Albert Jay Nock (1870—1945)
American libertarian author and social critic.
_Memoirs of a Superfluous Man_ [1943]

Back in the nineteen-hundreds it was a
wonderful experience for a boy to discover
H. G. Wells. There you were, in a world of
pedants, clergymen and golfers, with your
future employers exhorting you to 'get on or
get out', your parents systematically warping
your sexual life, and your dull-witted
schoolmasters sniggering over their Latin
tags; and here was this wonderful man who
could tell you about the inhabitants of the
planets and the bottom of the sea, and who
_knew_ that the future was not going to be
what respectable people imagined.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950)
English novelist.
_Horizon_ [August 1941]

This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside,
but to be hurled with great force.
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.

-

kap posts to USENET newsgrouup:

When Alyssa was born I went to the book store and
bought 'Grimm's Fairy Tales.' I thought this was the book
that my mother read to me when I was very young. Pleased
with myself, I sent it to Greg and Annie. About two weeks
later Annie calls up and says "why the heck did you send
me this book!" I said it was for Alyssa and they were nice
fairy tales. Turns out they weren't. They were very depressing
fairy tales with a lot of killing and general mayhem. Very dark
tales. That's when I remembered that it was 'Anderson's Fairy
Tales' that were the good ones. And Aesop's Fables. The best
laid plans .....

--kap


kap posts to USENET newsgrouup:

Last month, after repeated invitations, I rejoined a paperback
book club. Times have changed. To begin with, in the old days
BOMC only offered hardcovers and there was no Amazon.com.
But, more importantly, paperback books didn't have such alluring
titles as 'The Sensuous Message.' I ordered 4 books (The Message
was tempting but I figured if I ordered something like that I would
probably die before it was delivered and then Margaret, upon
opening the package would declare, "He was *such* a weirdo!")
It's kinda like having clean underware on just in case they deliver
you, in really bad shape, to the hospital.) Anyway, of the 4 books
I ordered they sent only 2 correctly. One book they didn't send at
all and another book they sent in error. Marge was home when I
opened the package expecting 'The Oxford Book of something or
other - but instead, received 'Tales of a Geisha.' I explained what
had happened but I'm not sure she was convinced. Ain't it always
the way! I could have ordered 'The Senuous Message' after all!
Everything ended up okay as I returned 'Geisha' and they sent me
my 'Oxford'. They explained they had run out of stock on the missing
book, 'The Idiots Guide to the Internet', (there are a lot of idiots out
there; I'm not alone!) and they let me pick another one. I chose 'Woe
is I' a handy little English grammar reference book which I had best
read so I can figure out to (whom or who) I should send letters.

--kap

-

Books have led some to learning and others to madness.
--Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) (1304—1374)
Italian scholar, poet, and Humanist.

A borrowed book is like a guest in the house;
it must be treated with punctiliousness, with
a certain considerate formality. You must see
that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer
while under your roof. You cannot leave it
carelessly, you cannot mark it, you cannot
turn down the pages, you cannot use it
familiarly. And then, some day, althought this
is seldom done, you really ought to give it back.
--William L. Phelps (1865—1943)
American educator, journalist, and man of letters.
Radio broadcast [6 April 1933].

The thing about Tom Clancy is that you can start reading
a Tom Clancy book when the plane takes off in London
and you're still reading it when the plane lands in Sydney.
And then you can use it to beat snakes to death.
--Terry Pratchett (1948— )
English science fiction writer.

Books, that paper memory of mankind.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860)
German philosopher.
"The Art of Literature: On Men of Learning,"
_Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer_,
tr. T. Bailey Saunders [1851]

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence
we have that people are still thinking.
--Jerry Seinfeld (1954— )
American actor, writer, and comedian.

No furniture so charming as books.
--Sydney Smith (1771—1845)
English clergyman and essayist.
In 1802 cofounded "The Edinburgh Review"

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are
a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894)
Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist.
"An Apology for Idlers" _Virginibus Puerisque_ [1881]

Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.
--Paul Theroux (1941— )
American novelist and travel writer.
Quoted in Maxine Block _Current Biography Yearbook_ [1978].

How many a man has dated a new era in
his life from the reading of a book.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.
_Walden_ [1854] "Reading"

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books,
history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled,
thought and speculation at a standstill.
--Barbara Tuchman {nθe Wertheim} (1912—1989)
American historian and author.

-

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor-
strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a
table with a broken caster to steady it. A large,
flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a
broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book
with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to
throw at a noisy cat.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.


Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be
prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be
banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
"Notice," _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ [1884]


'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Following the Equator_ [1897],
ch. 25 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"


Be careful when reading health books, you might
die of a misprint.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.


Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience:
This is the ideal life.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.


The man who does not read good books has no advantage
over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.

-

-

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We
fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home,
communicate it to others, and it becomes the
property of all.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.


It is with books as with men: a very small number play
a great part; the rest are confounded with the multitude.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.

-

If the books which you read are your own, mark with a pen or pencil
the most considerable things in them which you desire to remember.
Then you may read that book the second time over with half the trouble,
by your eye running over the paragraphs which your pencil has noted.
It is but a very weak objection against this practice to say, 'I shall spoil
my book'; for I persuade myself that you did not buy it as a bookseller,
to sell again for gain, but as a scholar, to improve your mind by it; and
if the mind be improved, your advantage is abundant, through your book
yields less money to your executors.
--Isaac Watts (1674—1748)
English hymn writer.
_Logic On the Right use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth_ [1724]

During the blitz I was asked if I wanted to have my books
or my son evacuated to the safety of the country. I chose
my books because many of them were irreplaceable but I
could always have another son.
--Evelyn Waugh (1903—1966)
English novelist.

Beware that you are not swallowed up in books!
An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
--John Wesley (1703—1791)
English preacher and founder, with his brother Charles,
of the Methodist movement in the Church of England.

Damn all expurgated books, the dirtiest book
of all is the expurgated book.
--Walt Whitman (1819—1892)
American poet.

The good ended happily, and the bad
unhappily. That is what fiction means.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_The Importance of Being Earnest_ [1895]

I would never read a book if it were possible for me
to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].

Books were my pass to personal freedom.
I learned to read at age three, and soon
discovered there was a whole world to
conquer that went beyond our farm in
Mississippi.
--Oprah Winfrey (1954— )
American TV host and businesswoman.

^^

Alexander Woollcott (signing a first edition of his book):
"Ah, what is so rare as a Woollcott first edition?"

Franklin Pierce Adams : "A Woollcott second edition."

^^

-

The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under
the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make
friends with people of a distant past you have never
known.

People often say that a set of books looks ugly if all
volumes are in the same format, but I was impressed
to hear the Abbot Koyu say, 'It is typical of the
unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete
sets of everything. Imperfect sets are better.'

--Yoshida Kenko (c. 1283—c. 1350)
Japanese poet and essayist.
_Tsurezure-gusa_ (Essays in Idleness) [c. 1330].
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds} _History in Quotations_ [2004].
Cohan & Major add:
The priest Kenko notes the Japanese preference for
irregularity: 'In everything, no matter what it may be,
uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete
makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there
is room for growth. Someone once told me, "Even when
building the imperial palace, they always leave one place
unfinished. '"

-

I own enough books to put the Library of Congress out of
business, yet I continue to get more and more. It's an
alarming trait, among many in my personality. I've tried
to come clean and sober, but sooner or later the pull of
vice calls, and I become the Mr. Hyde of book-hunting...
don't leave your books unattended around me.
--Carlos Ruνz Zafσn (1964— )
Spanish novelist.
Interview in "The Advertiser Saturday Review" [August 2004].

For him that stealeth a book from this library, let
it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him.
Let him be struck by palsy and all his members
blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for
mercy, and let there be no surcease for his agony
until he sinks into dissolution. Let book-worms gnaw
his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and
when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the
flames of hell consume for ever and aye.
--The Librarian at the Monastery of San Pedro,
Barcelona
In Nicolas A. Basbanes,
_A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes,
and the Eternal Passion for Books_ [1995].

--

First you have the writer who can write but can't spell.
Then you have the editor who can spell but can't write.
Finally you have the publisher who can neither spell
nor write, and he makes all the money.
--anon.,
in Michael Larsen _Literary Agents_ [1996].

-

All the characters in this book are entirely fictitious,
and any person claiming to be any one of them will
be prosecuted.
--unknown author's (Twain?) note in a book

--

A person who collects books printed before 1501 is an incunabulist.

-----

abibliophobia (noun) [κ-bi-bli-κ-'fo-bee-yκ]
The morbid fear of running out of reading material.

antiquarian [an-tuh-KWAIR-ee-uhn], noun:
1. One who collects, studies, or deals in objects or relics from the past.
2. Of or pertaining to antiquarians or objects or relics from the past.
3. Dealing in or concerned with old or rare books.

bibliophile (noun)
A lover of books; a collector of books

codex (noun)
A handwritten book, esp. of classical, medieval,
or religious texts.
Related: manuscript

enchiridion (noun) [en-kκ-'ri-di-yκn]
A book small enough to be carried in the hand (handbook) for
reference, especially one used for music or theology.

incunabulum (noun) [in-kyκ-'nζ-byU-lκm]
1. A book printed in the earliest period of printing, especially from Gutenberg's
invention of the printing press in 1436 up to 1500; an incunable;
2.Any product of the earliest stage of development;
3. A cocoon.

longueur [long-GUR], noun:
A dull and tedious passage in a book, play,
musical composition, or the like.
Ex.: "One of the commentators compared my speech to one
of Gladstone's which had lasted five hours. 'It was not
so long, but some of the speech's . . . longueurs made
Gladstone seem the soul of brevity,' he wrote."
--Lord Lamont of Lerwick, "Been there, done that,"
Times (London) [6 March 2001]

noir (adj.) ['nwa(r)]
Gloomy crime fiction or film featuring cynical characters in sleazy settings.

vade mecum [vay-dee-MEE-kuhm; vah-dee-MAY-], noun:
1. A book for ready reference; a manual; a handbook.
2. A useful thing that one regularly carries about.

vellum (noun)
1: A fine-grained calfskin, lambskin, or kidskin that has
been treated to serve as book pages or covers.
2: A heavy, cream-colored paper that resembles this.
3. A manuscript written or printed on vellum.
Related: paper, bond


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