Walter Mosley Quotes

In our leisure we reveal what kind of people we are.

You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

I must have books everywhere. They're the soul of a room-they reveal the taste, the interests, and the secrets of whoever lives there.

What you collect says so much about who you are.

Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.

I think you can do a lot, like describing people with their physical characteristics, things like that, but to me, I've always found it to be a much more informative question to ask somebody what they read.

Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.

A man is known by the books he reads.

What better way to get to know someone than through her choice and treatment of books?

A library represents the mind of its collector, his fancies and foibles, his strength and weakness, his prejudices and preferences. Particularly is this the case if, to the character of a collector, he adds - or tries to add - the qualities of a student who wishes to know the books and the lives of the men who wrote them. The friendships of his life, the phases of his growth, the vagaries of his mind, all are represented.

Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.

Seeing one's books on the shelf tells you so much about the way somebody has, over the years, put together their private library, which is a reflection of their minds and their selves.

As individuals, we are so different in our personalities, lifestyles, how we grew up, and our culture.

I look to find the heart and soul of people, of my characters. I look for the truth of them and the truths about life that are presented through them.

A library represents the mind of its collector, fancies and foibles, strengths and weaknesses, prejudices and preferences.

With any character, I try to focus more on who the character is and how they got to be who they are.

You can tell a lot about a person by what’s on their playlist.

It's not what you like but what you are like that's important.

The essence of style is how you live your life

Cute's good. But cute only lasts for so long, and then it's, 'Who are you as a person?' Look at the heart. Look at the soul. Look at how the guy treats his mother and what he says about women. How he acts with children he doesn't know. And, more important, how does he treat you?

There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.

A man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him," my father had told me more than once. "A businessman has business books and a dream has novels and books of poetry. Most women like reading about love, and a true revolutionary will have books about the minutiae of overthrowing the oppressor. A person with no books is inconsequential in a modern setting, but a peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.

There is no better indicators of character than the books you have.

Almost all of my many passionate interests, and my many changes of mind, came through books. Books prompted the many vows I made to myself.