Betty Smith Quotes

I would prefer to have one comfortable room well stocked with books to all you could give me in the way of decoration which the highest art could supply.

No furniture is so charming as books.

I never understood people who don't have bookshelves.

Books are the heart of any home, and I spend hours going through books for design inspiration.

A book is the only immortality.

I've always been a homemaker, like, I like creating spaces. Even if I stay in a hotel, I'll unpack, I'll put my books out, I'll put my camera out, I'll throw a sweater over the lamp to get better light. I am a homemaker.

Every book takes you to the terror, that terrible place of possible failure.

But what struck me was the book-madness of the place--books lay scattered across the unmade bed and the top of a battered-looking desk, books stood in knee-high piles on the floor, books were crammed sideways and right side up in a narrow bookcase that rose higher than my head and leaned dangerously from the wall, books sat in stacks on top of a dingy dresser. The closet door was propped open by a pile of books, and from beneath the bed a book stuck out beside the toe of a maroon slipper.

It's insane to be a writer and not be a reader. When I'm writing I'm more likely to be reading four or five books at once, just in bits and pieces rather than subjecting myself to a really brilliant book and thinking, "Well what's the point of me writing anything?" I'm more likely to read a book through when I take a break from writing.

If you look around my room, you see lots of lists. I'm inspired by what's up on the wall.

In a longish life as a professional writer, I have heard a thousand masterpieces talked out over bars, restaurant tables and love seats. I have never seen one of them in print. Books must be written, not talked.

Making really great music, making really great films, writing great books is an antidote to all of that. And, as people, as artists, some of the massive disruption that technology is causing is so exciting, the way that people can share creativity now.

I want to be able to write on my walls. I think that's the big thing.

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of magic.

Always I'm working on some of book. That's the way I make a living.

There are two kinds of people in the world - those who have a horror of a vacuum and those with a horror of the things that fill it. Translated into domestic interiors, this means people who live with, and without, clutter.

If I wasn't an actress I'd want to be a writer or else find a job where I got to read books and watch movies all day, everyday, for the rest of my life.

She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen. With wonder, she smiled. That such a room existed!

I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.

You have to bring books to explain your work.

The more I write, the more I've come to realize that books have a different place in our society than other media. Books are different from television or film because they ask you to finish the project. You have to be actively engaged to read a book. It's more like a blueprint. What it really is, is an opportunity... A book is a place where you're forced to use your imagination. I find it disappointing that you're not being asked to imagine more.

God makes trees, he doesn't write books.

A lot of my ideas come from McNally Jackson bookstore. One of my favorite things to do is just go there and look through architecture books and interior design books. Something about the aesthetics of space and beautiful images works with my brain.

So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.

Every book is a kind of experiment in doing something that feels impossible.