Top 100 Short Books Quotes
#1. The Snow Leopard's Tale is mesmeric. Tom McIntyre has compressed so many things into so few pages that I can think of only a few other short books that can compare. It was worth the wait for all of us who look forward to reading anything with his name under the title.
John Barsness
#2. The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.
Robert Morgan
#3. Short chaps evolved naturally, but I didn't title and number them till much later. I like short chaps, like short books too, as a rule.
Poe Ballantine
#4. Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say.
Of course those who write short books have even less to say.
Mark Z. Danielewski
#5. I write novellas, short books, whatever. I set out to write a good story not write a dictionary.
Jason E. Hodges
#6. I don't write huge books any more. I used to write 1,000 printed pages, but now I write short books. I did one on Napoleon, 50,000 words - enjoyed doing that. He was a baddie. I did one on Churchill, which was a bestseller in New York, I'm glad to say. 50,000 words. He was a goodie.
Paul Johnson
#7. Good blurbs are short, sweet, and limited to six. They answer the question Why should I buy this book?
Guy Kawasaki
#8. It should be possible to exist with only a short shelf of books, to read and give away. After all - we may not open a book, once read, for ten years or more. But the act of reading has made it part of us - to relinquish it would be to lose an extension of our being.
Pam Brown
#9. 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
#10. Well, Bradbury's a genius. Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books of all time, and The Illustrated Man as a collection of short stories ranks up there. When you read it you realize how influential it is on so many other stories and people.
Zack Snyder
#11. Life, as the signs in the liquor stores say, is too short to drink bad wine. And summer is too short to read bad books.
David Frum
#12. I'm not an overnight success. My early publishing history, through my first five books, was unfortunate in many respects, typified by a couple of short anecdotes.
John Lescroart
#13. Remember, life is too short to be spent dancing with idiots.
Carew Papritz
#14. 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
#15. Life is too short for reading inferior books.
James Bryce
#16. Life is too short to read inferior books.
James Bryce
#17. This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit.
Stephen King
#18. I like working in children's books because it gives rise to such a variety of jobs. One month it may be a picture book, the next a retelling, the next a play, a short story or the start of the next novel.
Geraldine McCaughrean
#19. One day, I decided to be an island. I took off my clothes and walked into the sea, then floated there, bobbing along with the tide, suspended by my inflatable tube and water wings.
Ng Yi-Sheng
#20. I gauge success in years, not weeks. The weekend box-office approach to book launches is short sighted and encourages crappy books.
Timothy Ferriss
#21. I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.
Nell Freudenberger
#22. Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile.
Orhan Pamuk
#23. All that sweetness makes me feel weird. My sister was never the loving type.
Mary Papas
#24. But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.
Jonathan Coe
#25. Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.
John Ruskin
#26. Life being so short, and the possible books to write so many, it's good to function by night as well as by day; but would anybody become a writer if they realised at the outset what the working hours were?
Hilary Mantel
#27. I read more than I had in years-novels, short stories, three long nonfiction books about how we had stumbled into the Iraq mess (the short answer appeared to have W for a middle initial and a dick for a Vice President).
Stephen King
#28. My books rustled by like a military of ducks. My mother had never liked my books. She'd said they kept me from real life, by which I think she meant men, or money, or both. Always accusing things of precisely the crimes they hadn't committed.
(From the short story: Once an Empire)
Rivka Galchen
#29. Life is short, but art is long. Sophocles is dead, but Oedipus lives on ... Each of us when we read a great piece of literature is a little more human than befor
James W. Sire
#30. But we will not bury our mother. We have no interest in putting her bones in soft ground, no desire for memorials and platitudes, no feelings attached to the organic detritus of her terminated existence.
JY Yang
#31. Nothing can ever change that I was yours and you were mine, and for a short period of time, we had something people write books about. We lived love. A love so tragic and beautiful that it's only fitting it doesn't have a happily ever after. I love you.
Stevie J. Cole
#32. I am drawn to writing books about magic and the supernatural because those are the types of books I like to read. I've written many short stories with realistic settings, and I certainly wouldn't rule out realistic novels in the future!
Cassandra Clare
#33. If writers, like comedians or singers, could only hear themselves bombing as they worked, it's likely that certain books would be cut short after the first few leaden sentences.
Walter Kirn
#34. Oh, yeah, this girl was going down. She had no idea who she was messing with. And, sadly, she didn't seem to care.
I hoped her drawer came up short at the end of her shift. Karma's a bitch.
Darynda Jones
#35. Life is too short to read books whose cleverness makes them impenetrable. A good book should keep you awake at night, flickering through pages as you promise yourself just one more chapter; they shouldn't put you to sleep as you tackle a paragraph for the fifth time.
Kate Morton
#36. Any moment now, I thought, he was going to wake up. Any moment.
O Thiam Chin
#37. If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#38. Oh no, princess. I would never carry out anything which could harm your being. This was just something I was told to say. I'm not sure what is planned, if, you go against their wishes. But, I'm sure you're smart and won't test them.
Chayada Welljaipet
#39. The female characters in my books tend to be independent, frisky, spunky, witty, emotionally strong, erotically daring, spiritually oriented and intellectually generous; in short, the kind of women I admire in real life.
Tom Robbins
#40. The Bible is actually a library of books - some long, some short - written over hundreds of years by many authors. Behind each one, however, was [the] Author: the Spirit of God.
Billy Graham
#41. Glad to know about all of you who care about books, including or especially poetry. I'm a much published writer/editor of 12 books (medical nonfiction, literary novels, mysteries) and much short work, inc. prize-winning pieces.
Carole Spearin McCauley
#43. One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk.
Marina Tsvetaeva
#44. To dive in the darkness, I should dive in the truth, then in images of the world..., then facts, then in books, then listening, then in short stories... that's how I write the horror. It's very complicated.
Deyth Banger
#45. I usually have about four books on the go - a bedside book, a lavatory book, a downstairs book, and the book in my study that I read sneakily while I should be writing. Short stories for the lavatory, obviously.
Mal Peet
#46. It was true; books had saved me in my home remodeling projects, but they fell short in teaching me how to trust my instincts, and how to stop thinking with my educated brain and more with my kneecaps and butt cheeks.
Dee Williams
#47. Holly Barker series was a great read for me. Stuart gives short chapters and continued action all through his books.
Stuart Woods
#48. Regarding children's literature, look for interesting content and well-constructed sentences clothed in literary language. The imagination should be warmed and the book should hold the interest of the child. Life's too short to spend time with books that bore us.
Deborah Taylor-Hough
#49. Television and cable have become the new independent films, in a sense, for writers and actors to gravitate towards. That's why I like short films, too; I love doing readings, audio books, working with young filmmakers; anything that keeps you from getting blase about yourself or in a rut.
Campbell Scott
#50. Some books against Deism fell into my hands ... it happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.
Benjamin Franklin
#51. All politicians know that every 'temporary' political initiative promised as a short-term poultice stays on the books forever.
Cynthia Ozick
#52. She would keep playing the role of the winner as long as the audience believed her.
Mary Papas
#53. In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.
Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
#54. Many years later, Sophia will think of this night, and how close she was to tears. She will wonder how she could have allowed herself to arrive there, but also feel a twinge of loss for the girl still capable of losing control.
Jeremy Tiang
#55. Nevertheless we cherish all books, especially the unread ones, for who knows what secrets they might yield one day?
- p.397, as by Larry Zagorski, in his short story "The City of the Sun
Jake Arnott
#56. Life is short. Read good books!
Tina Shaw
#57. The four of us got back into the car. In an instant, I distinctly heard a "soundless music". It was the melody of friendship, the sound of a perfectly tuned quartet who got together by chance, four hearts playing in harmony.
You Jin
#58. Not everyone can experience what other people can... That's why movies come out... films and books... and short stories and novels...
Deyth Banger
#59. It's guff. It doesn't advance the action. It makes for nice fat books such as the American market thrives on, but it doesn't actually get you anywhere.
Douglas Adams
#60. And because the world is too big and time is too short and you only have one life to live, read!
A.A. Patawaran
#61. Everybody should read something. Otherwise we all fall down into the pit of ignorance. Many are down there. Some people fall in it forever. Their lives mean nothing. They should not exist. (From the short story, "Charity".)
Charles Baxter
#63. Jim Harrison's novels, John McPhee's nonfiction, Flannery O'Connor's short stories, and the crime novels of John Sandford, Ken Bruen, and T. Jefferson Parker. His books
C.J. Box
#64. My books are more about people experimenting with different identities and social models in a short-term way before they can break through to something authentic.
Chuck Palahniuk
#65. I'm only a novelist on occasion. Many of my books are made up of brief texts collected together, short stories, or else they are books that have an overall structure but are composed of various texts.
Italo Calvino
#67. Life isn't really short. There are just too many good books to read in one lifetime.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#68. One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.
In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#69. Don't you mind being short?' she blurted. He spread his small hands and looked at them. 'I am a magician, not a princess. A pony costs less to keep than a horse, which means I can buy more books.' He paused. 'It is not always a bad thing, to be overlooked.
Robin McKinley
#70. Lim Oh Kee kills himself in the early hours on the 12th day of December, 1921. His last meal is rice and nothing.
Evan Adam Ang
#71. Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz
William L.K.
#72. In a short amount of time, I've lived so much, had so many experiences and met so many different types of people and even lived in so many countries. If I had been in school, I'd be learning about the world from books.
Jennifer Lawrence
#73. People who rarely read long books, or even short stories, still appreciate the greatest examples of the shortest literary genres. I have long been fascinated by these short genres. They seem to lie just where my heart is, somewhere between literature and philosophy.
Gary Saul Morson
#74. Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.
Swami Vivekananda
#76. To be honest the future of The Life of One Kid... won't go very far... but I won't only put books/films.... and so on and so on... and some short stories I am going to put... from my darkness.
Deyth Banger
#77. Love does not choose belief, place, time, situations, or race. love happens between two souls.
Haidji
#78. The ideal reader of my novels is a lapsed Catholic and failed musician, short-sighted, colour-blind, auditorily biased, who has read the books that I have read.
Anthony Burgess
#79. Intelligence is attractive, but so is life experience. You can't amass it just by reading a ton of books. But you can live a lot of life in a short time. Travel. Talk to everyone. Collect adventures, and use them to understand the world. That's how you learn to treat people well. And that's sexy.
Nicole Lapin
#80. New thing is made in writting books, (novels, short stories... stories...)... It's to be build a character which you will love you will like him.... and one moment he dies... isn't it awesome?
Deyth Banger
#81. A novel is just a story that hasn't yet discovered a way to be brief.
George Saunders
#82. But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.
Jane Austen
#83. As the wind continued to howl and groan through her decaying body, she began to sing her story.
Ken Liu
#84. I'm a novelist, editor, short story writer. I also teach, and I freelance sometimes as an arts consultant. Most of my books have been published by Warner Books, now known as Grand Central Books.
Nalo Hopkinson
#85. Books educate people and educated people ask awkward questions of those who govern them. The educated, in short, are considered ungovernable. Better to keep people ignorant of the past and to concentrate their minds on the utopia that lies ahead.
The Economist
#86. Books in the series should be read in the following order. Moon Wreck: First Contact (Short Story) Moon Wreck: Revelations (Short Story) Moon Wreck: Secrets of Ceres (Short Story) The Slaver Wars: Alien Contact (Novel) Moon Wreck: Fleet Academy (Novel) The Slaver Wars: First Strike (Novel)
Raymond L. Weil
#88. This is no tall story. Nor is it a short story. Indeed, a story cannot be measured, for their realities stretch far beyond a page or one person's life.
Leah Broadby
#89. It's a great blessing if one can lose all sense of time, all worries, if only for a short time, in a book.
Nella Last
#90. Pat Moynihan could write books with one hand and legislate with the other. I can't; I have a short attention span. The slightest distraction would take me away from writing.
Barney Frank
#91. I've always been a fan of books that create an interesting blend of fact and fiction - whether it's Norman Mailer, or 'The Short Timers,' or 'In Cold Blood.' I'm a fan of that genre.
Mark Boal
#92. The law is always too short and too tight for growing humankind. The best you can do is do something and then make up some law to fit and by the time that law gets on the books you would have done something different. Do
Robert Penn Warren
#93. Ciabattari is a master of transformation as she gives these stories of loss, woe, crisis and collapse the salutary and sometimes bracing pleasures of plain good fiction.
Kirkus Reviews
Jane Ciabattari
#94. I remember clearly the afternoon that she stood at the corner beside the door of the tourist centre in Gdansk.
You Jin
#95. In the books I read the sinners are always more interesting than the saints, and in real life good people are dismally dull. I've no desire to be wicked, but I do want to be happy. A short life and a gay one for me and I'm willing to pay for my pleasure if it is necessary.
Louisa May Alcott
#96. Writing for Mills and Boon taught me a lot of discipline. You have to produce books in a short time scale and four a year, and it teaches you a lot.
Penny Jordan
#97. I have many, many editions of the books, and they are all rather different. In the end, the one I used was the most recent French translation. French suits the tales well, and it's a beautiful translation. The Italian one is good as well ... English has fallen short.
Marina Warner
#98. Life is too short to read books that I'm not enjoying.
Melissa Marr
#99. Life is simply too short for the wrong books, or even the right books at the wrong time.
Tim Parks
#100. Old books, old wine, old Nankin blue;-
All things, in short, to which belong
The charm, the grace that Time
makes strong,
All these I prize, but (entre nous)
Old friends are best!
Henry Austin Dobson
