Novels, memoirs, short stories, essay compilations, and more continue to shape who we are and how we view the world, no matter what format—physical book, ebook, or audiobook—we use to absorb and enjoy them. Books are pathways into different worlds and different lives, and one can never be truly bored with a good book. Here are some of the best quotes about books, whether you love to read or listen.
Quotes About Books and Reading
Between work, family, chores, and more, it’s all too easy to let life get in the way of the pleasure of spending time with books. Whether you’ve let your cherished hobby lag or you’re a devoted reader and listener, these quotes will remind you of what you love about settling down with the perfect story.
1. “That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
2. "Books are a uniquely portable magic." – Stephen King, On Writing
3. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.” – George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
4. “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
5. “I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” – Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
6. “Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden
7. "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
8. “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
9. “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
10. “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden
11. “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
Whether they revolve around family dynamics or romantic relationships, or focus on career goals or personal challenges, books really do have the answers to all of our questions. We learn so much from works of literature, and the knowledge we can gain from authors of the past and present is indispensable. Read on for some quotes to inspire your next mind-expanding listen.
12. “One must always be careful of books... and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” – Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel
13. “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
14. “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
15. “The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell, 1984
16. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!
17. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” – Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
18. “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala
19. “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
20. “If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But thereis 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. These quotes demonstrate just how much love writers have for their craft.
21. “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
22. “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
23. “It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
24. “A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.” – David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
25. “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
26. “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
27. “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
28. “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. Literature can be serious, but it can also be light and silly and absurd—which these quotes demonstrate perfectly.
29. “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
30. “Books were safer than other people anyway.” – Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
31. “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
32. “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
33. “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
34. “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
35. “Like most uneducated Englishwomen, I like reading—I like reading books in the bulk.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
