John Dryden Quotes

Criminal cases receive the attention of the press. The cruel and disagreeable things of life are more apt to get the newspaper space than the pleasant ones. It must be that most people enjoy hearing of and reading about the troubles of others. Perhaps men unconsciously feel that they rise in the general level as others go down.

A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.

Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.

It is partly to avoid consciousness of greed that we prefer to associate with those who are at least as greedy as we ourselves. Those who consume much less are a reproach.

People are like almanacs, Bonnie - you never can find the information you're looking for, but the casual reading is well worth the trouble.

For years I stopped reading beauty magazines because I couldn't look at one without wanting to blow my brains out. How can those women look so good?

I had this big complex because I didn't go to college. There was a whole era where I got linked to everybody. People that I had never met. I was like, "How? I'm home alone reading chapter 12 of a book."

Nevil Shute's On the Beach is no Christmas carol, but it seems to me a remarkably fine novel, one which I read, in the peculiarly repulsive phrase, with my eyes glued to the page.

It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to our shores is likely to get more dinners and speeches of welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous, off-hand criticism.

Say what you will, there is something fine about our old aristocracy. I'll bet Trotsky couldn't hit a moving secretary with an egg on a dark night.

Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.

People read books to escape the uncertainties of life.

If he is anything other than a total gentleman, I’m going to gouge his eyes out.” “So you’re into it.” “Withholding judgment! When can I see you?” “Certainly not until you finish An Imperial Affliction.” I enjoyed being coy. “Then I’d better hang up and start reading.” “You’d better,” I said, and the line clicked dead without another word. Flirting was new to me, but I liked it.

Books for general reading always smell bad; the odor of common people hangs around them.

The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.

I think if you're open-minded, the road will take you where it takes you. If you're closed, you might not get to go where the road is heading.

I always thought the joy of reading a book is not knowing what happens next. (Leonard Shelby, Memento)

I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we'd say, Yeah, he's a Cool Guy.

Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman.

A big book is like a serious relationship; it requires a commitment. Not only that, but there's no guarantee that you will enjoy it, or that it will have a happy ending. Kind of like going out with a girl, having to spend time every day with her - with absolutely no guarantee of nailing her in the end. No thanks.

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph.

This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong ; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them.

He frowns. "A dance with the carnivorous Felicity? Why? Has she eaten all the other available gentlemen?