Norman Cousins Quotes

The most inspiring objects are books. I have about 5,000 volumes in my home library. It's an unending source of visuals and ideas.

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a metaphor, not just for books but for ideas, for language, for knowledge, for beauty, for all the things that make us human, for collecting memory.

Books always help.

Paris is an ideal place to become informed, while Venice is a place to think and write.

One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.

As a kid, I used to go to the library and take out all the art books.

There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.

Reading has been the fuel of my motivation: it has changed the direction in which I have traveled, and it has enhanced my creative imagination more than any other activity I have ever pursued.

I think reading is important for a variety of things. I mean, first of all, it's a way to get information and find out what's going on in the world. But also, it helps your imagination.

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

Books are challenging and inspirational to me.

People don't care about books. They care about ideas.

A love of books has opened so many doors for me. Stories have inspired me and taught me to aspire.

And where does magic come from? I think that magic's in the learning.

If you read, the world is your oyster. It truly is. Reading makes everything possible.

I read a lot of books. I read because it inspires me and shows me paths that I could never imagine. Sometimes those paths are horrible and sad, and sometimes they are hopeful and amazing. Not always are they paths to the future, and sometimes the paths are actually about the past but make sense when applied to the future. Books are amazing.

I wrote a children's book because children have the most open minds. They are the people who really want to learn.

Through books you will meet poets and novelists whose creations will fire your imagination. You will meet the great thinkers who will share with you their philosophies, their concepts of the world, of humanity and of creation. You will learn about events that have shaped our history, of deeds both noble and ignoble. All of this knowledge is yours for the taking… Your library is a storehouse for mind and spirit. Use it well.

For me, books have been a life-long resource-to learning, laughter, solace, excitement, inspiration. At your library, the world awaits you, free for the asking.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.

There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.

What better way to expand your imagination than to read!