You can’t beat a good book. Where would we be without them? History is littered with incredible authors who have shepherded readers through life, touching on every corner of existence in the process. Whether it is Mark Twain and his dry curiosity, Jane Austen’s timeless portrayal of the elite, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s embrace of austerity or George R.R. Martin’s endless fantastical imagination, book lovers have been in dreamland for the longest time. A great book is often the best friend one can have, and there are few joys in life that compare with finding the right book at exactly the right time. When you fall in love with a new book, you fall head over heels.
From fairy tales to gritty non-fiction, great books are key to a whole life. A good library is the sign of a healthy home and a healthy mind, while an excellent library is not unlike a treasure island where everything is possible. Descartes taught us to question perception, C.S. Lewis put grief into words that many struggled to find, Carl Sagan made the galaxy accessible and Roald Dahl inspired a universe of creativity in readers from a young age. Listing all the great authors is an impossible task, but putting together a collection of inspirational quotes about and from good books is well within grasp. The best quotes have a power that is all their own and completely universal at the same time, portable magic that might just change your life in the blink of an eye.
Great books shape who we are and how we view ourselves, each other and the wider world, and the best book quotes have become lightning rods for growth and understanding. There has never been a better time to be a book lover, and there has never been a better time to explore the spaces in between words and meaning. Looking for inspirational quotes from the best books ever written? Look no further.
Quotes About Books and Reading
In an increasingly fast-paced and chaotic world, it is easy to let life get in the way of time spent with a good book. Between work, family, chores, and more, it’s all too easy to let forget the pleasure of spending time with books. Whether you have let that most fulfilling of hobbies lag or not, these inspirational quotes about or from the best books are perfect for remembering just why we read in the first place and will spark excitement for reading that may have been lost in all the hullabaloo of the 21st century.
1."Books are a uniquely portable magic." – Stephen King, On Writing
2.“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.” – George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
3.“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
4.“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” – Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
5.“Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden
6."The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
7.“He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.” – John Green, An Abundance of Katherines
8.“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
9.“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden
10.“Come to a book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it, and draw your own map.” – Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
Quotes About Books and Knowledge
There are plenty of reasons to settle down with a good book. but the knowledge that is inspired by reading is right there at the top of that mountain. Whether focused on family dynamics, romantic relationships, workplace struggles or even internal dialogues, great books can change the way we view and approach problems big and small, as well as help us think and feel a little more deeply about many of the world’s most puzzling subjects. Literature is all about learning, and the best books from the past, present and future are filled with knowledge that has never been more indispensable than it is today. If these inspirational quotes don’t get you lining up that next mind-expanding listen, you might want to check your pulse.
11.“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
12.“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
13.“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell, 1984
14.“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” – Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
15.“One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala
16.“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” – G.K. Chesterton, Heretics
17.“If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Quotes about the Pure Love of Books
The ability to make the reader or listener fall in love with a book and its characters takes more than skill; writers must have a true passion for words and stories. Writers can't just pull storytelling magic out of thin air after all, and the best stories come together through a dedicated combination of absolute love and hard, hard work. When it all comes together, it is an intensely beautiful thing, a format that has been enthralling bibliophiles for centuries. These quotes demonstrate how much love writers have for their craft and how much love it takes to create magic.
18.“A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking
19.“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
20.“It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
21.“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.” – David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
22.“When a long book succeeds, the writer and reader are not just having an affair; they are married.” – Stephen King, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
23.“A classic is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity to take the place of its fashion.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
24.“And books! ...she would buy them all over and over again; she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree.” – Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
25.“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Funny Quotes about Books
We often turn to books for deep insights or moving and dramatic tales. But sometimes, all you need from a book is a good laugh. Life is serious enough after all, and getting lost in the hilarity of a good book can often provide the most magnificent escapes. Storytelling has been infused with comedy since the beginning, and not a year passes without bibliophiles finding new ways to laugh through books, long and short. Literature can be serious, but it can also be light and silly and absurd, which these quotes demonstrate perfectly. Laughter is the best medicine, and there is plenty of truth in that aphorism.
26.“There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.” – Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
27.“Books were safer than other people anyway.” – Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
28.“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.” – Anne Rice, The Witching Hour
29.“To a bibliophile, there is but one thing better than a box of new books, and that is a box of old ones.” – Will Thomas, Some Danger Involved
30.“Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
31.“I have tried to write by the old rule that how good a book is should be judged by the man who writes it by the excellence of the material that he eliminates.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
32.“Like most uneducated English Women, I like reading—I like reading books in the bulk.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Whether you are settling down with Margaret Atwood’s dystopias, Abraham Lincoln’s memoirs, Albert Einstein’s theories or the inimitable fiction of Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Jorge Luis Borges and the rest, you are in for a treat that will fundamentally change the way you view the world. Books are the great elixir of life and good books are positively delicious, refreshing listens that open our eyes and ears to the magic of the world around us. Sure, that magic is often a little more negative than we’d like it to be, but taking the rough with the smooth is an integral part of existence. Almost as integral as reading books, come to think of it...
