Ann Patchett Quotes

I feel lucky that I read so many books as a kid because I know that no matter how much I appreciate a book now, and I can love a book very much, it's never going to be that childhood passion for a book. There's some element, something special about the way they're reading books and experiencing books that's finite.

I'm an appreciator. I love all kinds of books, and I want others to love them, too.

So there you have it, a lifetime of first smelling the books, they all smell wonderful, reading the books, loving the books, and remembering the books.

A good book is an event in my life.

To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.

Books can be passed around. They can be shared. A lot of people like seeing them in their houses. They are memories. People who don't understand books don't understand this. They learn from TV shows about organizing that you should get rid of the books that you aren't reading, but everyone who loves books believes the opposite. People who love books keep them around, like photos, to remind them of a great experience and so they can revisit and say, "Wow, this is a really great book."

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.

I don't think with any book you get used to people falling in love with the story. It's been incredible just to realize your books are being read. It's a pretty amazing feeling.

My wife read Narc as well and was really into it.

Basbanes makes you love books.

So he lent her books. After all, one of life's best pleasures is reading a book of perfect beauty; more pleasurable still is rereading that book; most pleasurable of all is lending it to the person one loves: Now she is reading or has just read the scene with the mirrors; she who is so lovely is drinking in that loveliness I've drunk.

A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. Even as a kid, my sister, who was the eldest, brought books home for me, and I think I spent more time sniffing and touching them than reading. I just remember the joy of the book, the beauty of the binding. The smelling of the interior. Happy.

When we finish a book, why do we hold it in both hands and gaze at it as if it were somehow alive?

I like that you can open up any one of my books anywhere and immediately be lost. I just love them so much.

Here's the thing: Authors live or die by recommendations. [That's one of the reason I review so many books on Goodreads.] Giving books you love good reviews is one of the nicest things you can do for an author. What's more it's good for the entire community.

She would bring you some great book because she was a book matchmaker, because she loved books the way other girls loved clothes.

I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.

Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.

From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap; I loved the crisp whisper of a page turning, the musky odor of old paper and the sharp inky whiff of new pages. Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside.

I even love the smell of books.

Great is bookishness and the charm of books.

The greatest gift is a passion for reading.

Words are alive--when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over. Reading isn't passive--I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them. Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading.

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.