Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.
—Humphrey Carpenter (1946–2005) English Children’s Books Writer, Biographer, Author, Radio Personality
There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
—Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) South African Political leader
The newest books are those that never grow old.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
You will, I am sure, agree with me that… if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.
—Augustine Birrell (1850–1933) English Politician, Barrister, Academic, Author
I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
One learns little more about a man from his feats of literary memory than from the feats of his alimentary canal.
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925) American Educator, Writer
Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish.
—Milan Kundera (b.1929) Czech Novelist
One sheds one’s sicknesses in books—repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Literature flourishes best when it is half trade and half an art.
—William Motter Inge (1913–73) American Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canada Journalist, Playwright, Academic, Critic, Novelist
Thy books should, like thy friends, not many be, yet such wherein men may thy judgment see.
—William Wycherley (1640–1715) English Dramatist
One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.
—Ford Madox Ford (1873