Henry David Thoreau Quotes

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.

A good book is never exhausted; we are never exhausted by a good book.

At the roots, people are still people. That's why Shakespeare is so popular no matter what the language.

You need to have a reader's sympathy in order to accomplish anything. It's like at a reading, I find it's better to read something funny than to read something tragic. It just goes over better because you have a finite amount of time with somebody. Of course, in a book, you have a lot of time. But you still do want to make a certain impression right when you begin.

I'm often a little perplexed, when I read a review of a book, by the quotes that are pulled out as evidence of excellent prose. I don't think great novels are necessarily composed of great prose, or that there's a correlation between beautiful prose and the quality of a work of fiction. A really good, interesting novel will often let a little ugliness get into its words - to create a certain effect, to leave the reader with a certain sense of disorientation.

I like the brighter, shinier, happier comic-book material on a personal level, but I also think the best stories are told where you just don't know from page to page or moment to moment when the sucker-punches are coming.

In my opinion, what makes a great book is something that is universally specific.

A lot of religious texts make for good reading. That's why they hold up.

What should a good children’s book be like? If you ask me, I can tell you after thinking long and hard: It must be good.

If a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that.

Sometimes, despite the fact that you're reading through masses of material, you just can't not think about a certain event, for it seems to capture the reality of the entire situation so much better than any set of statistics.

I want to write books that can be read a hundred years from now, and readers wouldn't be bogged down by irrelevant details.

I think the book is less emotional than the film. With the film, the emotions are much more raw and in front. In the book, they are kind of ironized and seen through comedy.

Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings.

Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man.

I love getting fan mail. Often, as a writer, you never know what your readers think of a book... you get critical reviews and sales figures, but none of that is the same as knowing you've made a person stay up all night reading, or helped them have a good cry, or really touched their life.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

The Catcher in the Rye had such a deep impact on me, because it felt like it was just Holden and me. I didn't feel like any other person had read that book. It felt like my secret. Writing that I identify with feels like it's just me and the writer. So I hope that whoever is reading what I do feels like that.

When you have a good movie, it's hard to categorize it. It's everything. It makes you laugh, makes you cry and makes you think.

What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts in a manner all their own, and I'm convinced that the shattered world has less hope for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it.

Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.

Any play that makes an audience think out of the box, that makes connections to life and names our pain and by doing so makes our pain subject to thinking and the process of understanding, is doing something inherently political. By promoting understanding, by putting experience in context, by making connections between the normal and the rational, theatre is an act of anti-terrorism. It stimulates courage and a survival spirit. In that sense of political, there are a lot of serious plays doing their work in the world.

I am not ambitious to appear a man of letters: I could be content the world should think I had scarce looked upon any other book than that of nature.

Readers themselves, I think, contribute to a book. They add their own imaginations, and it is as though the writer only gave them something to work on, and they did the rest.