I collect quotes like I collect books, and of course some of my favorite are quotes about books and reading.  To me, books are one of the greatest treasures in the world. I love going to bed at night in a room filled with books, because it’s like I have access to hundreds of different worlds through my dreams. I like to imagine that my mind is wandering through the pages, just looking for an adventure to settle on in sleep. Apparently, many others feel the same sense of excitement and deep passion for books, as there are literally thousands of great quotes about books out there. These are just a few of my favorites. Quotes about Books and Reading


“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L’Engle

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles William Eliot

Quotes about Books and Reading

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”
― Bertrand Russell

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”
― Stephen King

“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Quotes about Books and Reading

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren’t. I’m not surprised some people prefer books.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.”
― Philip Pullman

“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it. Those who do not do it, think of it as a cousin of stamp collecting, a sister of the trophy cabinet, bastard of a sound bank account and a weak mind.”
― Jeanette Winterson

“Books may well be the only true magic.”
― Alice Hoffman

“Be awesome! Be a book nut!”
― Dr. Seuss

Quotes about Books and Reading

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Books and You

“Only bad books have good endings.
If a book is any good, it’s ending is always bad – because you don’t want the book to end.”
― Pseudonymous Bosch, The Name of This Book Is Secret

“Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.”
― Hermann Hesse

Quotes about Books and Reading

“Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.”
― Stephen Fry

“Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you’d most like not to lose.”
― Neil Gaiman

 

Do you have any great quotes about books and reading to share? I’d love to add some new ones to my collection!