Susan Sontag Quotes

A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.

Some books we read, tho' few there are that hit the happy point where wisdom joins with wit.

Clearly one must read every good book at least once every ten years.

Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age.

Sleep is good, he said, And books are better.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Even the worst book can give us something to think about.

Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.

Re-reading is much underrated. I've read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold once every five years since I was 15. I only started to understand it the third time.

Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.

Books are the windows through which the soul looks out.

Good books are for consideration after, too.

Good books are as friends, willing to give to us if we are willing to make a little effort.

How important my books are or anybody's books are, I don't know. I don't think they are terribly important I think that they make people contented during the period they are reading them and this is worth something is to take care of somebody for a couple of hours.

Anything worth anything can be found in books.

I'm confused, and brilliant books help me to be less so.

One cannot celebrate books sufficiently. After saying his best, still something better remains to be spoken in their praise. As with friends, one finds new beauties at every interview, and would stay long in the presence of those choice companions. As with friends, he may dispense with a wide acquaintance. Few and choice. The richest minds need not large libraries.

I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.

A book is like a money-changer: it pays you back in another form what you brint to it.

Blessings be the inventor of the alphabet, pen and printing press! Life would be -- to me in all events -- a terrible thing without books.

Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.

Books do not make life easier or more simple, but harder and more interesting.

Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them.

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst...They are for nothing but to inspire.