“This morning I looked at the books on my shelves and thought that they have no knowledge of my existence. They come to life because I open them and turn their pages, and yet they don't know that I am their reader.” KnowsBookTurnsExistenceMorningReaderPagesShelves Book:A Reading Diary Source: A Reading Diary
“It was important to buy into the fact that the nine hundred pages an end-reader never sees are just as valuable as the ones that are bound and placed on the shelf.” ImportantEndsFactsReaderPagesHundredBoundsValuableNineShelves Author:Joshua Mohr
“Years later he'd stood in the charred ruins of a library where blackened books lay in pools of water. Shelves tipped over. Some rage at the lies arranged in their thousands row on row. He picked up one of the books and thumbed through the heavy bloated pages. He'd not have thought the value of the smallest thing predicated on a world to come. It surprised him. That the space which these things occupied was itself an expectation.” WorldYearsBookLyingValuesWaterSpacePagesExpectationsLaysLibraryHeavyRageRuinsDeceitPoolSmallestShelves Book:The Road Source: The Road
“Just looking at them I grow greedy, as if they were freshly baked loaves waiting on their shelves to be broken open--that one and that--and I make my choice in a mood of exalted luck, browsing among them like a cow in sweetest pasture. For life is continuous as long as they wait to be read--these inked paths opening into the future, page after page, every book its own receding horizon. And I hold them, one in each hand, a curious ballast weighing me here to earth.” IfsLongBookHandsEarthLife IsChoicesGrowsWaitingPathBrokenPagesLuckMoodOpeningCuriousHorizonCowsShelvesGreedySweetestExaltedPasturesWeighingBrowsingBallast Author:Linda Pastan
“We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together.” LoveLifePersonsBookStoriesSeemsAgeTogetherLyingStrongSimpleBehindsSweetQuietPagesAnd LoveLibraryVulnerableVolumeShelvesRipOne WordBinding Author:Deb Caletti
“And sometimes then he sat with us for an hour or so, sharing our limbo, listening while I read. Books from any shelf, opened at any page, in which I would start and finish anywhere, mid-sentence sometimes. Wuthering Heights ran into Emma, which gave way to The Eustace Diamonds, which faded into Hard Times, which ceded to The Woman in White. Fragments. It didn't matter. Art, its completeness, its formedness, its finishedness, had no power to console. Words, on the other hand, were a lifeline.” WayArtBookSometimesMatterHardHandsHoursWhiteListeningPagesSentencesRanHeightSatHard TimesDiamondShelvesFragmentsFadedConsoleEmmaCompletenessLimboLifelines Book:The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel Source: The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
“Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in there jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journy of exploration and discovery.” FirstsLooksBookLinesCitiesReaderPagesDiscoveryTablesBoundsTreasureOpeningGatesPrintExplorationChestsShelvesJacketsNeatStaticOrderlyTreasure Chests Author:David Almond
“I smiled at the stacks, inhaling again. Hundreds of thousands of pages that had never been turned, waiting for me. The shelves were a warm, blond wood, piled with spines of every color. Staff picks were arranged on tables, glossy covers reflecting the light back at me. Behind the little cubby where the cashier sat, ignoring us, stairs covered with rich burgundy carpet led up to the worlds unknown. 'I could just live here,' I said.” WorldLittlesSaidLightWaitingBehindsRichColorPagesPicksTablesWoodsWarmSatCoveredStaffShelvesCarpetReflectingStairsSpineJust LiveBurgundyCashiers Book:Shiver Source: Shiver
“Kiran says (the shelf) is full of stories. If it is, then I like fairy stories. Fairy stories are fair. In them wishes are granted, words are enchanted, the honest and brave make it safely through to the last page and the baddies either have to give up their wickedness for ever and ever, no going back, or get ruthlessly written out of the story, which they hardly ever survive. Also in fairy stories there are hardly any of those half-good half-bad people that crop up so constantly in real life and are so difficult to believe in.” PeopleIfsGivingBelieveRealStoriesLastsWishDifficultHalfWrittenHonestGiving UpPagesFairsBraveReal LifeGrantedFairyShelvesWickednessCropsBad PeopleEnchantedFairy StoriesBaddies Author:Hilary McKay
“All these perfect days, made of glass Put on the shelf where they can cast perfect shadows that stretch and grow on the imperfect days down below. ... perfect shadows that shift and glow... ... perfect shadows that shift and grow..." "Sam singing on page 256 of Linger.” MadeGrowsPerfectPagesSingingShadowCastsGlassesImperfectShelvesPerfect Days Author:Maggie Stiefvater
“You may be the only guy my age I've ever met who knows what bergamot is, much less that it's in Earl Grey tea." "Yes, well," Jace said, with a supercilious look, "I'm not like other guys. Besides," he added, flipping a book off the shelf, "at the Institute we have to take classes in basic medicinal uses for plants. It's required." "I figured all your classes were stuff like Slaughter 101 and Beheading for Beginners." Jace flipped a page. "Very funny, Fray.” KnowsWellsLooksMaySaidBookUseAgeGuyStuffClassMetsPagesPlantTeaShelvesGreyJaceSlaughterOther GuysInstituteBeginnersFlippedFraySupercilious Author:Cassandra Clare