Literary Escape Quotes

The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We'd just make small talk, play soccer together. When something bothered me, I didn't talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that's just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own.

Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

Reading was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I'd keep the book hidden so I could read during class. Before long I bought a small stereo and spent all my time in my room, listening to jazz records. But I had almost no desire to talk to anyone about the experience I gained through books and music. I felt happy just being me and no one else. In that sense I could be called a stack-up loner.

When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].

Books are a hard-bound drug with no danger of an overdose. I am the happy victim of books.

I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch.

I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

All true readers have a book, a moment when real life is never going to be able to compete with fiction again.

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.

If you're going to binge, literature is definitely the way to do it.

I'll bet you $10 right now that there are an awful lot of literary writers who started a long time ago and now they find themselves in this place where secretly they feel trapped. And you know what they really read for fun? They read crime fiction.

I fell into the books, and left myself there for safekeeping.

Half the time I pick up a book, that's what I'm trying to get.

Books-bright windows in this life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men.

Literature is my Utopia

Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

Reading keeps me sane. Growing up, it was my scape, my alternative; it provided both rebellion and peace.

I'd go somewhere where no one spoke. I would take a stack of books up to my hips, and I'd read nonstop. And I'd be reading naked.

Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.

Books were my pass to personal freedom.