Lev Grossman Quotes

There is no denying the aesthetics of a well-made, well-loved book.

I've always spent money on books. I've always enjoyed handling books - the size, the format. I feel very strongly about original ephemera.

I hate libraries for the way they put stickers on things. I don't approve of folding over pages, or of writing in books. God, forget scissors - that's beyond the pale.

All books are in safe hands with me. They're my children, my inky children, and I look after them well. I keep the sunlight away from their pages, I dust and protect them from hungry hookworms and grubby human fingers.

I took delight in hurling books across the room if I knew I would not be reading the second chapter. Then I’d go and pick them up again, because they are books, after all, and we are not savages.

The Librarian considered matters for a while. So…a dwarf and a troll. He preferred both species to humans. For one thing, neither of them were great readers. The Librarian was, of course, very much in favor of reading in general, but readers in particular got on his nerves. There was something, well, sacrilegious about the way they kept taking books off the shelves and wearing out the words by reading them. He liked people who loved and respected books, and the best way to do that, in the Librarian’s opinion, was to leave them on the shelves where Nature intended them to be.

Madam Pince, our librarian, tells me that it is 'pawed about, dribbled on, and generally maltreated' nearly everyday - a high compliment for any book.

If somebody writes a book and doesn't care for the survival of that book, he's an imbecile.

Child! Do not throw this book about; refrain from the unholy pleasure of cutting all the pictures out.

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.

Child! do not throw this book about Refrain from the unholy pleasure Of cutting all the pictures out! Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.

Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes.

I believe in the value of the book, which keeps something irreplaceable, and in the necessity of fighting to secure its respect.

Lionel whispered because he was under the impression that it was out of respect for books, not consideration for readers.

When a new book is published, read an old one.

I personally own six or seven thousand books, so I - and I certainly don't want to see them go away.

Anyone who wants bookstores to survive is portrayed as a Luddite who goes around smashing up Kindles.

I love the fact that 'Flowers for Algernon' is doing its part to get people reading.

Books guided my life from high school, and the greatest, most interesting, most provocative, funniest, smartest people who ever lived in the last 200 or 300 years wrote those books. I would fall in love with Victor Hugo and read not just 'Les Miserables,' but 'Bug-Jargal' and 'The Toilers of the Sea' and so forth.

The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth.

I grew up in a bookish family, so I read very widely. I was omnivorous, really.

I do like having books on my shelves. I do value that life.

Hardcover and paperback forever. Someone carve that into a tree.

I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting.