Books and Reading, A Few Good Quotes

I got my first Mac in 1987, a MacIntosh 512ke. Over time I have written a lot of material on my various Macs. Unfortunately with each new generation of software, many files become obsolete because they can't be opened. My early MacWrite files and early PageMaker files are pretty much inaccessible unless I want to pay some extra cash to see if they can be retrieved, which I did for my screenplay Uprooted earlier this year.

It can be fun to dig through the folders to see what's there. One folder on the desktop of my iMac is called Redeemed Good Stuff, and this weekend I sifted through a few of the folders and files to see what was there. Some of the files had names like "A Top Ten List of Music" and "Claude Hopkins Ad Tips" and "Journal Notes Blue Notebook." I also found a number of early writing projects that I'd begun and abandoned, and a file containing nine pages of quotes about books. Here is a smattering from this latter file for your edification.

Never judge a book by its movie. ~ J. W. Eagan

The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one. ~ Sir James Goldsmith

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination. ~ Elizabeth Hardwick 

Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable. ~ Augustine Birrell

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. ~ Margaret Fuller

The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library, “The medicines of the soul.” ~ Paxton Hood

I am a part of everything that I have read. ~ John Kieran

In science, read by preference the newest works. In literature, read the oldest. The classics are always modern. ~ Lord Edward Lytton

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. ~ Richard McKenna

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere. ~ Hazel Rochman

Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library. ~ Jim Rohn

I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage. ~ Charles de Secondat

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. ~ Atwood H. Townsend

Choose an author as you choose a friend. ~ Sir Christopher Wren

Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark? ~ Fred Stoller

I've used a dollar for a bookmark before. It doesn't work on my Kindle, though. But if you have two dollars, I hope you'll enjoy my featured eBook of the Day: The Breaking Point and Other Stories

Read on!