We never tire of the friendships we form with books.
Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking.
When the wind is blowing and the sleet or rain is driving against the dark windows, I love to sit by the fire, thinking of what I have read in books of voyage and travel.
The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the book case.
The Book of Proverbs deals very hard blows against sluggards, and Christian ministers do well frequently to denounce the great sin of idleness, which is the mother of a huge family of sins.
If your creed and Scripture do not agree, cut your creed to pieces, but make it agree with this book.
The Book of Psalms instructs us in the use of wings as well as words. It sets us both mounting and singing.
God gave me this great book to preach from, and if He has put anything in it you think is not fit, go and complain to Him, not to me. I am simply his servant, and if His errand that I am to tell is objectionable, I cannot help it.
Affliction is the best book in a minister’s library.
One of the most modern pretenders to inspiration is the Book of Mormon. I could not blame you should you laugh outright while I read aloud a page from that farrago.
Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of which I never seem to tire; and the secret of its freshness is that it is so largely compiled from the Scriptures.
Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me. They were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old; but I have outgrown them. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.
You shall find books and sermons everywhere, in the land and in the sea, in the earth and in the skies, and you shall learn from every living beast, and bird, and fish, and insect, and from every useful or useless plant that springs from the ground.
Imagine books and music and movies being filtered and homogenized. Certified. Approved for consumption. People will be happy to give up most of their culture for the assurance that the tiny bit that comes through is safe and clean. White noise.
My books are always about someone obtaining a power to replace the previous sort of power that they held.
The word book acted as a transient stimulus.
There’s a moment in every book when the book turns and it surprises me.
The money is in television. Books are not the dominant medium of our time, so fewer people will create them. In a sad way, books have become a form of “comfort food” we expect to lull us to sleep.
What I’m always trying to do with every book is to recreate the effect of the stories we heard as children in front of campfires and fireplaces – the ghost stories that engaged us.
To see how boring you really are, write a book about soap and cults, and the profits you make will be your only means of subsistence.