Top 66 Quotes About Books That Make You Think
#1. Fiction allows for moral questioning, but through the back door. Personally, I like books that make you think - books you're still wondering about three days after you finish them; books you hand to a friend and say "Read this, so we can talk about it."
Jodi Picoult
#2. We can't really make a living doing comic books, despite the fact that would be an awfully fun way to make a living.
Erich Hoeber
#3. When real substantive change happens it's the people who watch your show, they're the ones that make it happen. It's people whose names are not highlighted in history books. They're the ones that stand up in their place and time to make change.
Tom Morello
#4. I don't publish the books to make money, not at all.
Peter Sotos
#5. There's supposed to be drama. The dull stories never make it into the books.
Ellery Adams
#6. An editor named Kerrie Hughes wanted me to write a short story that brought my fire-spider Smudge from my goblin books into the present-day world. I came up with libriomancy as a way to make that happen.
Jim C. Hines
#7. When they walked inside, Meryn inhaled deeply. The only thing that would make this place smell better was if it sold books.
Alanea Alder
#8. Be true to yourself.
Make each day your masterpiece.
Help others.
Drink deeply from good books.
Make friendship a fine art.
Build a shelter against a rainy day.
Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.
John Wooden
#9. A man, to read, must read alone. He may make extracts, he may work at books in company; but to read, to absorb, he must be solitary.
Richard Jefferies
#10. And above all, you should not think of writing as a way of earning your living. If you do, your work will smell of your poverty. It will be colored by your weakness and be as thin as your hunger. There are other trades which you can take up: make boots, not books.
Marquis De Sade
#11. Books belong to their readers! Own it! Make it yours!
John Green
#12. I don't try to sugarcoat things, but I also think my books make positive statements about the people and values in small-town America.
Tawni O'Dell
#13. If you wish to be a lawyer, attach no consequence to the place you are in, or the person you are with; but get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.
Abraham Lincoln
#14. I've got lots of books sitting here that have never been published because nobody could make any marketing sense of them.
Whitley Strieber
#15. We want to make sure children aren't left without any books. We want to make sure our children have the books, that they have a place in the castle. We want to make sure that their mothers have affordable day care. We want to make sure we give the older people the care that they need.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
#16. I love words. I crave descriptions that overwhelm my imagination with vivid detail. I dwell on phrases that make my heart thrum. I cherish expressions that pierce my emotions and force the tears to spill over. In essence, I long for a writer's soul sealed in ink on the page.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#17. I make a rod for my own back because people see my novels as quasi documentaries. But it is never history that's the main event of my books. It's my characters.
Christopher Koch
#18. The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. A great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
1810-1860, Minister
Theodore Parker
#19. Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them. You don't read a book - you experience it. Every story opens up a new world.
Karin Slaughter
#20. I've always felt strongly that a writer shouldn't be engaged with other writers, or with people who make books, or even with people who read them. I think the farther away you get from the literary traffic, the closer you are to sources. I mean, a writer doesn't really live; he observes.
Nelson Algren
#21. I say, 'I write romance, women's fiction, chick lit.' I think it all fits very comfortably under the same umbrella. Basically, I write books for women - books about relationships: books that make you laugh and sometimes make you cry a little.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
#22. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.
Timothy Snyder
#23. If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.
John Le Carre
#24. Do you like Moby Dick?" he asks.
"I hate it," she says. "And I don't say that about many things. Teachers assign it, and parents are happy because their kids are reading something of 'quality.' But it's forcing kids to read books like that that make them think they hate reading.
Gabrielle Zevin
#25. I think that the economics of book publishing favor hits with long book runs. You make all your money on the last bunch of books, not the first.
Seth Godin
#26. If you think about movies that are adapted from books, they never feel like enough. There's always too much cut out in the end. You either make a five hour movie or you leave out stuff that should be in there.
Jeremy Sisto
#27. They should make new ways to better design buildings and books. The computer was the end of Swiss typography!
Emil Ruder
#28. Whatever I've worked on, I've always tried to make my writing personal. I think that's what makes my books somewhat different from what other scientists are doing. You have to tie concepts into everyday life, or they just won't be interesting for readers.
Leonard Mlodinow
#29. Only think about the people you enjoy. Only read the books you enjoy, that make you happy to be human. Only go to the events that actually make you laugh or fall in love. Only deal with the people who love you back, who are winners and want you to win too.
James Altucher
#30. I want my books to explore motives which make people think, 'Wow! Imagine the psychological state you'd have to be in for that to be your motive!' Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy - they're rational reasons for committing murder.
Sophie Hannah
#31. The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.
Theodore Parker
#32. I like books that are exciting and that make you think about things as well.
Saoirse Ronan
#33. I read a fair amount [of science fiction], and you know it was certainly inspirational. I have to pinch myself to think that we might be able to make some of [what I've read in science fiction books] come true.
Richard Branson
#34. A writer's primary goal is to make sense. The bookstore's is to make cents.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#35. In Endless Quest books, you start the plot, and the character has to make choices. Then you have to write one choice over here, one choice over there. The author might get one or two choices out.
Margaret Weis
#36. Books, I knew then and now, give body to our ideas and imaginations, make them flesh in the world; a bookstore is the city where our fleshed-out inner selves reside.
Lewis Buzbee
#37. Can I ask what you're reading?" ... She turned the book so the cover faced me. Wuthering Heights. "Have you read it?" She said. I nodded. I could feel the pulsating beat of my heart behind my eyes. "It's a sad story." "Sad stories make good books," She said. "They do.
Khaled Hosseini
#38. We love books because they are the greatest escape. That is because our own minds eye is the purest form of virtual reality.
M.R. Mathias
#39. The expression Jake saw on all the faces, oldest to youngest, was the same: pure joy. Not just that, he thought, and remembered a phrase his English teacher had used about how some books make us feel: the ecstasy of perfect recognition.
Stephen King
#40. I am no fan of books. And chances are, if you're reading this, you and I share a healthy skepticism about the printed word. Well, I want you to know that this is the first book I've ever written, and I hope it's the first book you've ever read. Don't make a habit of it.
Stephen Colbert
#41. I can't divorce myself from my childhood. I try to write as much fiction as I possibly can, but there are so many things that are touchstones of my childhood like being on the swim team and playing soccer and the particularities of sports season and environments that make their way into my books.
Jeff Kinney
#42. And yes, there's a simplicity to writing books because you're not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee.
Bernard Cornwell
#43. Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.
George Bernard Shaw
#44. Growing maturity is marked by the increasing liberties we take with our travelling ... we made the discovery (some people never make it) that real books can be taken on a journey and that hours of golden reading can so be added to its other delights.
C.S. Lewis
#45. I hate SF books that think all you need to make a book is cool technology and mind-bending ideas without a decent plot or characters. And I hate when fantasy books are allowed to ramble off into five hundred page diatribes which don't advance the story one bit.
Chris Wooding
#46. I took on a year of reading books for a reason. Because words are witness to life: they record what has happened, and they make it all real. Words create the stories that become history and become unforgettable. Even fiction portrays truth: good fiction is truth.
Nina Sankovitch
#47. When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books.
Paul Theroux
#48. I always feel I have made unfilmable books. I even felt that way about a book of mine that was later made into a movie. But my wife, who has made two films, thinks this one would make a very original film. I'm all for original films.
Rick Moody
#49. The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it's perfect. It's this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything.
Jo Walton
#50. I love thinking of movie stars who could play the characters in the books I write. I think Charlize Theron would make a lovely Marie Antoinette.
Kathryn Lasky
#51. I find that there are two kinds of books; the ones that make you want to read more and those that make you want to write more.
Harmann Pitts
#52. I love 'Anna Karenina.' It's in the top five books on my list. Tolstoy is unsurpassed in combining the grand with the trivial, that is, the small details which make up life.
Susan Minot
#53. Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!
Neil Gaiman
#54. If you ever meet someone who thinks they are so special, the best thing to do is smile. You don't have to say anything. Be friendly and then go do
your best. That will make you special, too!
Jeff Hutchins
#55. Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.
Francois Truffaut
#56. It's almost like these games are the modern day comic books, especially when you play Alone in the Dark. There's a real story that goes along with it and a movie seemed like the right kind of transition to make.
Christian Slater
#57. We are forced by the major publishers to include electronic rights in the contracts we make with publishers for new books. And there's very little we can do about that.
Richard Curtis
#58. The teachers liked me. In grade school, they make you copy pictures from books. I think the first one was Robert Louis Stevenson.
Andy Warhol
#59. The spirit that America has, the American industry creativity it has where anything is possible. Three idealistic Australians bringing in new ideas and being able to make the damn comic books that they've always dreamed about, it's kind of a cool thing.
Sam Worthington
#60. It's stories that inspire people to change. It's stories that make them believe things can be better.
Sebastien De Castell
#61. I do think that books, good books, free you. They make you feel a citizen of the world and things like class, sex and age don't matter. They're the greatest leveler.
Sue Townsend
#62. Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistake of our own period. And that means the old books.
C.S. Lewis
#64. I write titles that are confrontational. I write titles that make people want to pick up a book and find out more about it. I write good books; I write great titles though.
Larry Winget
#65. We believe in books. Somehow we want to make childhood better, and we believe that a book given at the right moment can work magic in a child's life.
Ann Schlee
#66. A. Critics: people who make monuments out of books. b. Biographers: people who make books out of monuments. c. Poets: people who raze monuments. d. Publishers: people who sell rubble. e. Readers: people who buy it.
Cynthia Ozick
