Reference Materials Quotes

The man who acquires an encyclopedia does not thereby acquire every line, every paragraph, every page, and every illustration; he acquires the possibility of becoming familiar with one and another of those things.

Throughout my formal education I spent many, many hours in public and school libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were. The current definitive answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

One of the things you have to be able to do, as a comic strip artist, is to draw things repeatedly from a variety of angles, so you need references, and you find the best picture you can.

Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are tools: but more are tools to them.

My first biography was 'Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir.' To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedias. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there.

I always like to have an atlas just so that I can find things out. It's always good to have an almanac; those sort of things.

Useful though they are, the vast majority of dictionaries and encyclopedias are poker-faced pieces of work that stick to the facts and present them as soberly - and unstylishly - as possible.

My desk is like a 'U,' so I have my computer and lots of dictionaries because I write in Spanish and I live in English.

...I spent many, many hours in...libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were.

It wasn't that long ago that I was coming up, but it feels almost ancient that you had to go to the library and you had 'World Book Encyclopedias.'

One of my favorite ways to find fictional inspiration, by the way, is to browse historical timelines. I also like world atlases - any country with a squiggly coastline seems to inspire me, as do visual dictionaries, those reclusive creatures of the reference shelf.

In Liverpool, where I live, we have a brilliant library which has been refurbished, and I like going there.

Basically with everything, I choose my criteria based on what can be easy. If I made the real world the setting, I'd have to draw looking at reference materials for stuff like buildings and vehicles. When you do that, people complain even if it's just a little bit off.

Quoting, like smoking, is a dirty habit to which I am devoted.

Oh, I collect facts and quotes when I can't write, and I can't write most of the time. I do a little chance operation sometimes where I flip through outdated reference books to see if anything will strike me as beautiful or momentous. Library roulette, I call it.

If I'm researching something strange and rococo, I'll go to the London Library or the British Library and look it up in books.

As useful as websites and journals are, there's real value in books, too.

I have a large number of cassettes, but I look at them mainly for reference purposes.

A well-run, well-stocked library with access to great books as well as the Internet is essential.

I use all kinds of resources for researching my novels. I'm not shy about calling up experts and asking questions, or emailing, or buying textbooks and references. The Internet is always a brilliant way to find instant facts, but it's not a great way to really understand your subjects in depth without a lot of work.

Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.

I just want to make sure that I give the animators everything they need, so they have plenty of choices to match their animation.

You can go into the Library of Congress and find information on just about anything, but that doesn't do you much good unless you know what you are looking for.

I'm old enough, by a long shot, to remember going to the library and spending days researching. If I was looking for a line from a poem or something else I needed, that would be the trip I would have to take.