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Great Book Quotes

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Great Book Quotes

“Life is very full of sex, or should be. As much as I admire Tolkien - and I do, he was a giant of fantasy and a giant of literature, and I think he wrote a great book that will be read for many years - you do have to wonder where all those Hobbits came from, since you can't imagine Hobbits having sex, can you? Well, sex is an important part of who we are. It drives us, it motivates us, it makes us do sometimes very noble things and it makes us do sometimes incredibly stupid things. Leave it out, and you've got an incomplete world.”

ThinkingWorldShouldWritingYearsWellsImportantBookSometimesLife IsLiteratureSexWonderFantasyImagineStupidNobleAdmireGiantsWho We AreIncompleteGreat BookStupid ThingsHaving Sex
Author:George R. R. Martin
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“America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness, which are derived from Holy Scripture. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing to ask of you. I ask of every man and woman in this audience that, from this night on, they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this great Book of revelations. (The Bible) That if they would see America free and pure they will make their own spirits free and pure by the baptism of Holy Scripture.”

IfsMenBookChristianAmericaSpiritLyingNightAsksNationsRealizingBornSimpleDestinyAudienceHolyPureElementsMen And WomenEvery ManScriptureDevotionPresidentialGentlemanRevelationsRighteousnessSimple ThingsBaptismGreat BookHoly ScripturesLadies And GentlemenChristian NationBook Of Revelation
Book:The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson: College and state; educational literary and political papers (1875-1913)
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“The world has progressed to the point where it's most powerful force is public opinion. And I believe that in this world it is not the great book or epic play, as once was the case, that will shape that opinion, but those who understand mass media and the techniques of mass persuasion...We must not just believe in what we sell. We must sell what we believe in. And we must pour a vast energy into those causes.”

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Author:William Bernbach
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“In the circle where I was raised, I knew of no one knowledgeable in the visual arts, no one who regularly attended musical performances, and only two adults other than my teachers who spoke without embarrassment of poetry and literature — both of these being women. As far as I can recall, I never heard a man refer to a good or a great book. I knew no one who had mastered, or even studied, another language from choice. And our articulate, conscious life proceeded without acknowledgement of the preceding civilisations which had produced it.”

MenArtI CanTwoBookChoicesLiteratureLanguageTeacherHeardConsciousAdultsPerformancesRaisedMusicalCirclesVisualsSpokesRecallsEmbarrassmentCivilisationBeing A WomanKnowledgeableGreat BookAcknowledgementVisual ArtMusical Performance
Author:Shirley Hazzard
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“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island...”

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Author:Walt Disney
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“To read great books does not mean one becomes ‘bookish’; it means that something of the terrible insight of Dostoyevsky, of the richly-charged imagination of Shakespeare, of the luminous wisdom of Goethe, actually passes into the personality of the reader; so that in contact with the chaos of ordinary life certain free and flowing outlines emerge, like the forms of some classic picture, endowing both people and things with a grandeur beyond what is visible to the superficial glance.”

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Author:John Cowper Powys
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“Lonesome Dove is a great book that had the rare fortune of being made into a great movie. And now, through Bill Wittliff's photographs, we have a third generation of Lonesome Dove artistry. The same creative power and conviction that allowed Larry McMurtry to transform a workaday scenario for an unproduced screenplay into one of the greatest novels of our time, and that transformed that novel into the greatest western movie ever made, are on display in this collection. A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove is a masterpiece begot by a masterpiece begot by a masterpiece.”

MadeBookNovelCreativeGenerationsThirdsBillsFortuneWesternPhotographConvictionOur TimeCollectionsTransformedDisplayMasterpieceScenariosScreenplaysDoveArtistryLarryGreat BookLonesomeCreative PowerWestern MovieLonesome Dove
Author:Stephen Harrigan
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“When an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money. It other words, the stuff of great books.”

BookSoulHelpingDesireSexStuffEmotionSeeingTerribleMedicineResponseRevengeEnvyDefenseObsessionEditorsRitualExcessTwinsProjectionParanoiaCabinetsGreat BookVindication
Book:The Forest for the Trees: An editor's advice to writers
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“Books can be passed around. They can be shared. A lot of people like seeing them in their houses. They are memories. People who don't understand books don't understand this. They learn from TV shows about organizing that you should get rid of the books that you aren't reading, but everyone who loves books believes the opposite. People who love books keep them around, like photos, to remind them of a great experience and so they can revisit and say, "Wow, this is a really great book."”

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Author:Daniel Goldin
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“Everybody is different. Some writers can write reams of great books and then J. D. Salinger wrote just a few. Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. They were all phenomenal. Mozart wrote some 40 symphonies, and they were all phenomenal. That doesn't mean Beethoven was a lesser writer, it's just some guys are capable of more productivity, some guys take more time.”

WritingMeanBookDifferentGuyCapableProductivityNineMore TimeSymphonyPhenomenalGreat BookSalinger
Author:Billy Joel
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“Gina Hyams has put together a fabulous fun book/gift: Pie Contest in a Box: Everything You Need to Host a Pie Contest. There’s a great book inside, with recipes, pie history, and plenty of inspiration for gathering your friends together to see who can make the best pie. Plus, ribbons! And scorecards! This would be a great party.”

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Author:Shauna James Ahern
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“Love of books is the best of all.”

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Author:Jackie Kennedy
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“Al forms of consensus about ''great'' books and ''perennial'' problems, once stabilized, tend to deteriorate eventually into something philistine. The real life of the mind is always at the frontiers of ''what is already known.'' Those great books don't only need custodians and transmitters. To stay alive, they also need adversaries. The most interesting ideas are heresies.”

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Book:A Susan Sontag reader
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