Nigel Rees Quotes

Sometimes it seems like there's more footnotes than text. This isn't something we're proud of, and over time we'd like to see our footnotes steadily shrink.

A book that furnishes no quotations is no book - it is a plaything.

Inevitably, almost everything we say is either quotation or paraphrase.

It’s better to be quotable than to be honest.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it..

References drive the industry.

Without the library, I would have been lost.

I'm a massive fan of the dictionary.

The name 'Amazon' was not originally Greek; linguists believe it derived from the ancient Iranian word for 'warrior.'

Archives can be inspiring but overwhelming. You have to forget them - especially when the whole world has been knocking them off. Everyone shops the same flea markets.

As a songwriter, I feel like, just for inspiration and research purposes, I have to listen to everything.

I work a lot on words, so if I hear a word or see a word or a phrase or a sentence that someone says to me it just immediately sparks a concept.

In Holland, there's a song that goes, 'Redheads - they know how to kiss.' But that's obviously not a song I made. I don't know who made that song.

I keep a big, fat dictionary with me while writing.

A library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books---the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go.

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.

The helpful thought for which you look Is written somewhere in a book.

The library was one enormous room, with long, high metal shelves and the perfect quiet that libraries provide for anyone looking for an answer.

Quotations are best brought in to confirm some opinion controverted.

When you don't know what you're searching for, you have to look absolutely everywhere.

Philosophy is the true mother of science.

I like to quote things.

Science is the search for truth.

[To write poems] I think it's important to do research, and research mostly is going to come from books, so all of your reading is potentially helpful to your poetry.