Shelves Quotes - Page 12

• With all of their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of holiday houses to find something to read. I've come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun.

  J. K. Rowling

  Fun, Regret, Book

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• I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf.

  Patti Smith

  Book, Writing, My Own

  "The Saturday interview: Patti Smith". Interview with Aida Edemariam, www.theguardian.com. January 21, 2011.

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• All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.

  Katherine Paterson

  Children, Book, Taken

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• Th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing.

  Finley Peter Dunne

  Library, Firsts

  Finley Peter Dunne (2015). “Mr. Dooley Says”, p.77, The Floating Press

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• Married pixy, I told myself, forcing my eyes back to the shelf of ceramic animals. Fifty-four kids. Beautiful wife, sweet as sugar, who would kill me in my sleep while apologizing for it.

  Kim Harrison

  Beautiful, Sweet, Sleep

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• I felt instantly at home, and wanted only to dismiss Alistair, along with the rest of Justice Hall, that I might have a closer look at the shelves.I had to content myself instead with a strolling perusal, my hands locked behind my back to keep them from reaching out for Le Morte D'Arthur, Caxton 1485 or the delicious little red-and-gilt Bestiary, MS Circa 1250 or.... If I took one down, I should be lost. So I looked, like a hungry child in a sweet shop, and trailed out on my guide's heels with one longing backward glance.

  Laurie R. King

  Sweet, Children, Home

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• ...She's not buying [the lie], but there's nothing else on the shelves.

  Barry Lyga

  Lying, Buying

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• The stories that unfold in the space of a writer's study, the objects chosen to watch over a desk, the books selected to sit on the shelves, all weave a web of echoes and reflections of meanings and affections, that lend a visitor the illusion that something of the owner of this space lives on between these walls, even if the owner is no more.

  Alberto Manguel

  Wall, Book, Reflection

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.175, Vintage Canada

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• I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.

  C. S. Lewis

  Girl, Book, Reading

  C. S. Lewis (2013). “The Chronicles of Narnia Complete 7-Book Collection with Bonus Book: Boxen”, p.106, Harper Collins

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• A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.

  Henry Miller

  Lying, Book, Mind

  Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

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• 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.

  Linda Pastan

  Book, Hands, Long

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• In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long.

  Alberto Manguel

  Long, Library, Empty

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.66, Vintage Canada

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• Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves.

  Anne Fadiman

  Book, Stories, Refrigerators

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.15, Macmillan

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• Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself, Counting this row and that row of moccasins Waiting on the silent shelf.

  Anne Sexton

  Beautiful, Waiting, Silent

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.10, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Nothing could be slow enough, nothing lasts too long. No pleasure could equal, she thought, straightening the chairs, pushing in one book on the shelf, this having done with the triumphs of youth, lost herself in the process of living, to find it with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as the day sank. Many a time had she gone, at Barton when they were all talking, to look at the sky; seen it between peoples shoulders at dinner; seen it in London when she could not sleep. She walked to the window.

  Virginia Woolf

  Book, Sleep, Talking

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.193, Broadview Press

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• 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.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Lying, Book, Years

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road”, p.199, Pan Macmillan

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• If even rock was interesting, if even this ugliness was worth whole shelves at the library, required sophisticated tools to study, and inspired grown men to crack mountains and saw crystals--then what wasn't?

  Annie Dillard

  Men, Rocks, Interesting

  Annie Dillard (2016). “An American Childhood”, p.149, Canongate Books

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• It exasperated her sometimes. The way men could be so sure of themselves. They put words together like sheds or shelves and you could stand on them they were so solid. And those feelings which overwhelmed you in the small hours turned to smoke.

  Mark Haddon

  Men, Feelings, Together

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• My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves.

  Anne Fadiman

  Brother, Self, Parent

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• It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.

  Anne Fadiman

  Long, Library, Belief

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.21, Macmillan

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• You got me sitting on the shelf, while you're out bewitching someone else.

  Jimi Hendrix

  Evil, Sitting, Misogyny

  Song: Ball and Chain for Sale

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• I'm very wary of doing political stuff for a lot of reasons. One of the big ones is that the shelf-life for them is not very long, and the joke becomes old news very quickly.

  Tim Heidecker

  Long, Political, News

  "How Herman Cain Became a Tim and Eric Character". Interview with David Weigel, www.slate.com. November 12, 2011.

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• In the NFL, you have a short shelf life. As a running back, if you're the first pick, and you're NFL life expectancy is only 3.5-6 years, your first big contract might not come until three years in - well, you might never get there. They need to get those signing bonuses up front because nothing is guaranteed.

  Eric Dickerson

  Running, Years, Nfl

  "Eric Dickerson Interview: Hall of Fame RB Talks Randy Moss, NFL in LA and Rams". Interview with Bear Heiser, bleacherreport.com. November 5, 2010.

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• I was a teen idol and that has a short shelf life.

  Shaun Cassidy

  Idols, Shelf Life

  "Shaun Cassidy Creator Of American Gothic". Interview with Daniel Robert Epstein, www.suicidegirls.com. December 19, 2005.

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• What's the shelf life of a 1931 movie? If it still exists, there will always be film buffs and a niche audience who will want to see it. But in terms of people even understanding in common usage, some of the words we use to describe these movies, I don't know how long that's going to last.

  Joe Dante

  Long, People, Understanding

  "24 hours of horror with Joe Dante". Interview with Keith Phipps, www.avclub.com. October 31, 2012.

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