Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes About Books

• Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Birthday, Book, Writing

• You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Thanksgiving, Thankful

• A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Reading, Hero

  1905 Heretics, ch.15.

• There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Education, Book

• The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Flower, Silly, Book

• Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Book, Reading

  Defendant (1901) "Defence of Penny Dreadfuls"

• Every great literature has always been allegorical - allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad' is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Jobs, Book, Journey

  "A Defense of Nonsense". "The Defendant" by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

• The only words that ever satisfied me as describing nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment; they express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Nature, Book, Enchantment

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

• The most valuable book we can read, about countries we have visited, is that which recalls to us something that we did notice, but did not notice that we noticed.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Country, Book, Valuable

• There are many books which we think we have read when we have not. There are, at least, many that we think we remember when we do not. An original picture was, perhaps, imprinted upon the brain, but it has changed with our own changing minds. We only remember our remembrance.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Memories, Book, Thinking

• Students of popular science... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Buddhism, Giving

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.97, Simon and Schuster

• But those dealing in the actual manufacture of mind are dealing in a very explosive material. The material is not merely the clay of which man is master, but the truths or semblances of truth which have a certain mastery over man. The material is explosive because it must be taken seriously. The men writing books really are throwing bombs.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Taken, Writing

• People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Reading, Simple

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.199, Simon and Schuster

• You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Writing, World

  "Dictionary of Quotations in Communications" by Lilless McPherson Shilling, p. xvi, 1997.

• But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Division, Earth

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

• There is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Ninety Nine, Law

• The books that influence the world are those that it has not read.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, World, Influence

• I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Lying, Book, Nurse

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

• For Tommy, on that hot and empty afternoon, was in a state of mind in which grown-up people go away and write books about their whole world, and stories about what it is like to be married, and plays about the important problems of modern times. Tommy, being only ten years old, was not able to do harm on this large and handsome scale.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Writing, Years

• It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Men, People

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

• St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Pages, St Thomas

• Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can only say, ‘I do not understand,’ it is true that he who knows can only reply or repeat ‘You do not understand.’ And under that rebuke there is always a sudden hope in the heart; and the sense of something that would be worth understanding.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Jobs, Book, Heart

  "The Everlasting Man". Book by G. K. Chesterton, IV: God and Comparative Religion, 1925.

• I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Writing, Epic

• Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I have ever written.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Written

• Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is: what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problems of the modern novel is: what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Hero, Book, Mean

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