Books

When a scientist begins to read Will Cuppy's How to Become Extinct, it doesn't seem as funny as he thought it would be because so much of it is scientifically correct.
~ Charles William ("Will") Beebe

With a book for every mood -- the old books that have fired the imagination and blazed the trails for one's dreams, and the new ones that breathe the spirit of the modern age and yet keep it within bounds -- the child has a heritage that will make its future safe.
~ William Frederick Bigelow, from Good Housekeeping (November 1938).

Everything which diminishes the interest of a book is inimical to its preservation, and in fact is its enemy.
~ William Blades, The Enemies of Books (1880). Chapter VIII: Bookbinders

Books we must have though we lack bread!
~ Alice Williams Brotherton, in The Century Magazine (1896). Ballade of Poor Book-Worms

Strangely enough, the first time I tried to read the book I was on holiday in Florida. I dropped it in the pool my first day there. If that's not a Pippin thing to do, I don't know what is.
~ Billy Boyd, USA TODAY (14 December 2001). Return with us now ... to the land of Tolkien

Working as a bookbinder, I had put covers on "The Lord of the Rings," but I never read it. It was just too big. I finally read it when I knew I was playing Pippin and realized that really it is all about Pippin and some other people!
~ Billy Boyd.

[A] book cannot be proscribed as obscene unless found to be utterly without redeeming social value.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (court opinion), Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 (1966).

Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free-floating disagreeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader's full attention.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands (1987).

You ask me where I get these thoughts,
These dreams melodious, mystical,
I read them in God's book of lore,
Wide open, splendid, by my door.
~ William Wilfred Campbell, The Poems of Wilfred Campbell (1905). My Library

I thought in myself it should be a good business to translate it into our English, to the end that it might be had as well in the royaume of England as in other lands, and also for to pass therewith the time, and thus concluded in myself to begin this said work ... and forthwith took pen and ink, and began boldly to run forth as blind Bayard in this present work, which is named "The Recuyell of the Trojan Histories" ...
~ William Caxton, The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy (c. 1474). Title and Prologue to Book I

Books are the true levellers. They give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

Nothing can supply the place of books. They are cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart. Let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof, and obtain access for himself and family to some social library. Almost any luxury should be sacrificed to this.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but oftener those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

The diffusion of these silent teachers, books, through the whole community, is to work greater effects than artillery, machinery, and legislation.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

Truly good books are more than mines to those who can understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past times. Genius is not embalmed in them, as is sometimes said, but lives in them perpetually.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Lectures On The Elevation Of The Labouring Portion Of The Community (1840). Lecture II (delivered in Boston MA; 16 January 1840)

[G]reat books, like large skulls, have often the least brains.
~ William Benton (W.B.) Clulow, from Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion (1843). On Mind, Studies, and Intellectual Habits

You'll grow devilish fat upon this paper-diet!
~ William Congreve, Love for Love (1695). Act I, scene i

Books are the ever burning lamps of accumulated wisdom.
~ George William Curtis

Books show the utmost conquests of our minds.
~ Sir William Davenant, Gondibert (1651). Book 2, Canto 8

The monument of vanished mindes.
~ Sir William Davenant, Gondibert (1651). Book 2, Canto 5

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, in Peterborough Examiner (16 June 1962). Too Much, Too Fast

There are many people -- happy people, it usually appears -- whose thoughts at Christmas always turn to books. The notion of a Christmas tree with no books under it is repugnant and unnatural to them.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, in The New York Times (1991). Old Books We Need At Christmas

Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. Not only is there a mass of quotable stuff he never quotes, but an even vaster realm of which he has never heard.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, in Toronto Daily Star (1 October 1960). Dangerous Jewels

When I see a book that's supposed to be "gut-crunching suspense," I always ask myself, "do I sincerely want my guts crunched this week?"
~ William L. DeAndrea

I pray you, then, receive my little book in all charity, studying my words with me, forgiving mistake and foible for sake of the faith and passion that is in me, and seeking the grain of truth hidden there.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). The Forethought

There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx's Capital.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Seventh Son, vol. 2 (1933). Communism, Marxism and the Negro Problem

It is an error to suppose that books have no influence; it is a slow influence, like flowing water carving out a canyon, but it tells more and more with every year; and no one can pass an hour a day in the society of sages and heroes without being lifted up a notch or two by the company he has kept.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey Of Human Life And Destiny (1929). Part IV. Chapter XII: The Reconstruction of Character

Libraries are the wardrobes of literature, whence men, properly informed may bring forth something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use.
~ William Dyer

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends, they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
~ Charles William Eliot, The Durable Satisfactions of Life (1910). The Happy Life

A book is an artifact, and every age establishes upon the basic functional structure its own particular stamp.
~ William Everson (aka Brother Antoninus), in Prodigious Thrust (1996). Part One: The Unifying Force

Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written.
~ William Faulkner, Interview in The Paris Review, Issue 12 (Spring 1956). The Art of Fiction No. 12

It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: He made the books and he died.
~ William Faulkner (his own "sum and history of my life"), Letter to Malcolm Cowley (11 February 1949).

Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can.
~ William Feather

Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend.
~ William Feather

The Bible has done more harm than any other book in the world.
~ William Floyd, Christianity Cross-Examined (1941).

Vain world, let me reign in my nook,
King of this kingdom, my book,
A region by fashion forsook:
Pass on, ye lean gamblers for glory,
Nor mar the sweet tune of my story!
~ William Freeland, from A Birth Song: And Other Poems (1882). A Nook and a Book

I think it is much better for a book to have some parts that can be skipped just as well as not, you get through it so much faster. I have often thought what a good thing it would be if somebody would write a book that we could skip the whole of. I think a good many people would like to have such a book as that. I know I should.
~ William Henry Frost, Fairies and Folk of Ireland (1900). VII: A Chapter That You Can Skip

If a book is worth reading at all, it is worth reading more than once. Suspense is the lowest of excitants, designed to take your breath away when the brain and heart crave to linger in nobler enjoyment. Suspense drags you on; appreciation causes you to linger.
~ William Alexander Gerhardie, My Wife's the Least of It: Or, Baldridge Derelictes (1938).

Publishing a book and watching its life cycle is a bit like having a pet. Every once in a while a book turns out to be a tortoise, destined to outlive its author by many years.
~ William Germano, Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books(2001). What Do Publishers Do?

They had a sad smell, old books.
~ William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).

Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full with books -- even without taking them down from their shelves -- they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. The seem 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. Value them much.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, in The Real Gladstone: An Anecdotal Biography (1898). Chapter XII

The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, from Later Gleanings: A New Series of Gleanings of Past Years (1897).

A book is a dead man, a sort of mummy, embowelled and embalmed, but that once had flesh, and motion, and a boundless variety of determinations and actions. I am glad that I can, even upon these terms, converse with the dead, with the wise and the good of revolving centuries.
~ William Godwin, Fleetwood; Or, the New Man of Feeling (1805). Vol. I, Chapter VIII

In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights, of a mind of uncommon excellence.
~ William Godwin, The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature in a Series of Essays (1797). Part I. Essay V: Of an Early Taste for Reading

Anyway, here's the "good parts" version. S. Morgenstern wrote it. And my father read it to me. And now I give it to you. What you do with it will be of more than passing interest to us all.
~ William Goldman, The Princess Bride (1973). Introduction

Books have been handed down from generation to generation, as the true teachers of piety and the love of God, that represent him as so merciless and tyrannical a despot, that, if they were considered otherwise than through the medium of prejudice, they could inspire nothing but hatred. It seems that the impression we derive from a book, depends much less on its real contents, than upon the temper of mind and preparation with which we read it.
~ William Godwin, The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature in a Series of Essays (1797). Part I. Essay XV: Of Choice In Reading

Truly, associating with bad books is often more dangerous than associating with bad people.
~ Wilhelm Hauff, Das Buch und die Leserwelt

Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988).

[B]ooks let us into their souls, and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
~ William Hazlitt, in New Monthly Magazine (August 1830). The Sick Chamber

If I have not read a book before, it is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
~ William Hazlitt, in Sketches and Essays (1839). On Reading New Books (written in 1827)

Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble!
~ William Henry (First Duke of Gloucester)

Notions of books, and things I read or see,
Events that are, or were, or are to be,
Fall in my Table Book -- and thence arise
To please the young, and help divert the wise.
~ William Hone, The Table Book (1827-28).

The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.
~ William Dean Howells, My Literary Passions (1895). Chapter VII: Scott

The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.
~ William Dean Howells, Letter to Charles Eliot Norton (6 April 1903).

Never disregard a book because the author of it is a foolish fellow.
~ William Lamb (2nd Viscount, Lord Melbourne), in The Young Melbourne (1939).

A man will be known by his books.
~ William Martin, Harvard Yard (2003). Chapter One. 1605-1637

A good collection of epigrams should have some system, illustrating the styles of wit, as well as tones of thought, which have prevailed in different ages.
~ William Mathews, from The Great Conversers, And Other Essays (1874). III. Epigrams

The most discouraging feature of the mania for book-collecting is, that it grows by what it feeds on, and becomes the more insatiable the more it is gratified.
~ William Mathews, Hours with Men and Books (1877). XX. Book-Buying

My business is drawing, not writing, and this text is pretty much background for the drawings.
~ William H. (Bill) Mauldin, Up Front (1945). Introduction

The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

There is an impression abroad that everyone has it in him to write one book; but if by this is implied a good book the impression is false.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

Some people are obsessed about collecting books; I collect book thieves. They are my obsession. I have hundreds of folders documenting cases of book theft, probably the most extensive file of its kind anywhere.
~ William A. Moffett, quoted in A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Book (1995).

A book calls for pen, ink, and a writing desk; today the rule is that pen, ink, and a writing desk call for a book.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Books for the general reader are always ill-smelling books, the odour of paltry people clings to them.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them, and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.
~ William Osler, in The Life of Sir William Osler, Vol. II (1925).

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.
~ William Osler, Dedication address, Boston Medical Library (1901). Books and Men

Have but few books, but let them be well chosen, and well read, whether of religious or civil subjects.
~ William Penn, Advice to His Children (1699).

A good reason for marking favorite passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to refer to them quickly, and then in later years, it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, Radio Address, New Haven, Conn. (6 April 1933). Owning Books

Books are for use, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, Radio Address, New Haven, Conn. (6 April 1933). Owning Books

I wrote this book for a sense of personal satisfaction. Just like taking a good photograph or painting a picture or playing a good golf game or something, it's the thing in itself that justifies it.
~ William H. Rehnquist, Interview in C-SPAN Booknotes (5 July 1992).

The companionship of books is unquestionably one of the greatest antidotes to the ravages of time, and study is better than all medical formulas for the prolongation of life.
~ William Roberts, The Book-Hunter in London: Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting (1895). Introduction

Our foreign dealings are an open book -- generally, a checkbook.
~ Will Rogers

You are to come to your study as to the table, with a sharp appetite, whereby that which you read may the better digest. He that has no stomach to his book will very hardly thrive upon it.
~ William, Lord Russell, in The Life of William, Lord Russell: With Some Account of the Times in which He Lived (1819).

I browsed among the floor-to-ceiling rows of books for hours, reading around in perhaps forty or more books before the used-up air of the place, and the narrowness of the aisles between the rows, and the stuff in the books, drove me aback out into the streets, which suddenly seemed alive with stuff better than stuff in books -- the bread and union and water of intelligence itself.
~ William Saroyan, Places Where I've Done Time (1972).

A beggar's book
Outworths a noble's blood.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act I, scene i

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost

I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me,
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act I, scene ii

My library
Was dukedom large enough.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act I, scene ii

That book in many's eyes doth share the glory
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act I, scene iii

[T]he bookish theoric.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act I, scene i

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part II. Act IV, scene vii

I wish but two editions of all books whatsover. One of the simple text, published by a society of able hands: another with the various readings and remarks of the ablest commentators.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. On Writing and Books

Books are like the windows of a great tower. They let light in.
~ William Leroy "Bill" Stidger, The Place of Books in the Life We Live (1922). Forward

[A] great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.
~ William Styron, Interview in The Paris Review, Issue 5 (Spring 1954). The Art of Fiction No. 5

Basically it is a very politically incorrect book written by a white man trying to seize his own interpretation and put it into the soul and heart of a black man.
~ William Styron (on "The Confessions of Nat Turner"), The Library of Congress, Washington, DC (4 November 1998). Books and Beyond Discussion Series

The man of one book is always formidable; but when that book is the Bible, he is irresistible.
~ William Mackergo Taylor, Paul, the Missionary (1881). Chapter XIII. Thessalonica and Berea

Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part II (1690). An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning

It may perhaps be further affirmed, in favour of the ancients, that the oldest books we have are still in their kind the best.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part II (1690). An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning

Whoever converses much among the old books, will be something hard to please among the new.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part II (1690). An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning

If the secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dule tales excite the reader!
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Volume II. Chapter III: Contains A Novel Incident

A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the success of the Origin was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculation.
~ William Robin ("W.R.") Thompson, in The Origin of Species (Everyman's Library Edition; 1956). Introduction

The Origin of Species converted the majority of its readers to a belief in Darwinian evolution. We must now ask whether this was an unadulterated benefit to biology and to mankind. ... I do not contest the fact that the advent of the evolutionary idea, due mainly to the Origin, very greatly stimulated biological research. But it appears to me that owing precisely to the nature of the stimulus, a great deal of this work was directed into unprofitable channels or devoted to the pursuit of will-o'-the-wisps.
~ William Robin ("W.R.") Thompson, in The Origin of Species (Everyman's Library Edition; 1956). Introduction

The best book is not one that informs merely, but one that stirs the reader up to inform himself.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, Man: The Dwelling Place of God (1966). Some Thoughts on Books and Reading

The function of a good book is to stand like a signpost directing the reader toward the Truth and the Life. That book serves best which early makes itself unnecessary, just as a signpost serves best after it is forgotten, after the traveler has arrived safely at his desired haven.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, The Divine Conquest (1950).

Textbooks of the future should be even smaller, more customized and globalized. Professors should be able go to the Web, look at a list of contents, click off the sections they want, indicate what order they want them in and create their own tailored, personalized textbook in any major language they need. Students should then be able to interact with this text on the Web, access it in a uniquely customized printed form, or both. This kind of vision requires an innovative and creative publisher.
~ William M.K. Trochim, in Campus Technology (8/20/2004). The Future of College Textbooks

Go, little Book, and to the World impart
The faithful Image of an Am'rous Heart.
~ William Walsh, from Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant (1692).

I never played by "the book" because I've never met the guy who wrote it.
~ Dick Williams

My little book must stand the shine or shower,
And struggle on to live its little hour.
~ Robert Folkestone Williams, from Rhymes and Rhapsodies (1833). Dedication

A first book has some of the sweetness of a first love.
~ Robert Eldridge Aris (R.A.) Willmott, Pleasures, Objects, And Advantages Of Literature (1851). XII. Mental Delights of Early Life

[M]any books belong to sunshine, and should be read out-of-doors.
~ Robert Eldridge Aris (R.A.) Willmott, Pleasures, Objects, And Advantages Of Literature (1851). XVII. Books Which Are Adapted To Different Seasons

Every literate person has lived with books from the age of two. So it sounds a truism to say that books are man's most spectacular spiritual achievement. It is nevertheless true. Man has learned to conquer time through the written word.
~ Colin Henry Wilson, The Philosopher's Stone (1969).

In a sense, one can never read the book that the author originally wrote, and one can never read the same book twice.
~ Edmund Wilson, from The Triple Thinkers: Twelve Essays on Literary Subjects (1948). Preface

Gray Flannel really deals with two big issues. The first is how workaholics are divorced from their family and second, the illegitimate children that armies always leave around the world.
~ Sloan Wilson (of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit), Interview in Coast Guard Reservist magazine (April 2000). From Blue Wool to Gray Flannel

Books have their fate from the capacities of their readers, or rather from their principles.
~ (Bishop) Thomas Wilson, in Maxims of Piety and of Christianity (first published in 1781).

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes, Volume II (1807). Personal Talk. Stanza 3

How books mislead us, seeking their reward
From judgments of the wealthy Few, who see
By artificial lights; how they debase
The Many for the pleasure of those Few.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1850 edition). Book XIII: Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored (Concluded)

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject

Thy books should, like thy friends, not many be,
Yet such wherein men may thy judgment see.
~ William Wycherley, Advice to a Young Friend on the Choice of his Library

Nobody collected in the other bands. Nobody. And everybody thought I was crazy, stupid. They don't think now I'm stupid. It's very valuable. Now everybody starts to make a collection.
~ Bill Wyman (William George Perks) (said at the presentation in Berlin of his new book "Rolling with the Stones"), Reuters (13 November 2002). Rolling Stones Would Have No Chance Today -- Wyman

All the words that I gather,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night.
~ William Butler Yeats, Where My Books Go (1892).