70 Inspiring Quotes About Books and Reading For Book Lovers

quotes about books

Do you love getting lost in the pages of a great book? Do you remember the first time you opened a book and were captivated by the words inside? For book lovers everywhere, nothing quite compares to the captivating power of a good book. Whether you’re looking to explore a mythical world, travel back to a time long past, or simply relax in a cozy corner, books offer unparalleled entertainment and adventure. Take a look at these quotes about books and reading that perfectly capture the magic of literature.

From thought-provoking musings to uplifting words of wisdom, this collection of quotes will remind you of the power of literature. Let’s dive into this collection of quotes about books and reading and discover how we can better appreciate this powerful pastime.

Related: Inspirational Book Quotes | Motivational Quotes | Funny Life Quotes 

Inspirational Quotes About Books

1. “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

2. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” ― George R. R. Martin

3. “If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.” ― Toni Morriso

4.”So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.” ― Roald Dahl, Matilda

5. “A word after a word after a word is power.” ― Margaret Atwood

6. “A story can always break into pieces while it sits inside a book on a shelf; and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth.” ― Andre Dubus, Meditations from a Movable Chair

7. “You can get lost in any library, no matter the size. But the more lost you are, the more things you’ll find.” ― Millie Florence, Lydia Green Of Mulberry Glen

8. “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” ― Victor Hugo

Quotes For Book Lovers 

9. “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis

10. “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” ― Mark Twain

11. “Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.” ― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

12. “Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” ― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid

13. “Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” ― Stephen King

14. “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” ― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

15. “No. I can survive well enough on my own— if given the proper reading material.” ― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

16. “Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” ― Henry Ward Beecherr

17. “Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.” ― Christopher Paolini, Eragon

18. “What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.” ― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

19. “There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway

20. “Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.” ― Jane Smiley

21. “I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.” ― H. P. Lovecraft

22. “I love walking into a bookstore. It’s like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.” ― Tahereh Mafi

Quotes That Capture The Magic Of Books

23. “I like books that aren’t just lovely but that have memories in themselves. Just like playing a song, picking up a book again that has memories can take you back to another place or another time.” ― Emma Watson

24. ​​”Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

25. “You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” ― Paul Sweeney

26. “Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.” ― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

27. “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.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

28. “A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” ― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

29. “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” ― Walt Disney

30. “If a book is well written, I always find it too short.” ― Jane Austen

31. “Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.” ― Carl Sagan

32. “I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.” ― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

33. “Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.” ― Virginia Woolf

34. “The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” ― René Descartes

35. “Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.” ― Jeanette Winterson

36. “Books may well be the only true magic.” ― Alice Hoffman

Quotes About Reading For Kids

37. “I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.” ― Roald Dahl

38. “If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” ― J.K Rowling

39. “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” ― Charles W. Eliot

40. “The world was hers for the reading.” ― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

41. “There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.” ― Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

42. “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” ― Emilie Buchwald

43. “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” ― C.S. Lewis

44. “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” ― Madeleine L’Engle

Funny Quotes About Books

45. “Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.” ― Diane Duane

46. “There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.” ― Charles Dickens

47. “‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.” ― Mark Twain

48. “Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it’s much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!” ― Neil Gaiman

49. “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” ― Groucho Marx

50. “Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” ― Stephen Fry

51. “Always read something that makes you look good if you die in the middle of it.” ― P J O’Rouke

52. “Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you’d most like not to lose.” ― Neil Gaiman

53. “Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you’ll die of a misprint.” ― Markus Herz

54. “I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.” ― Steven Wright

Relatable Quotes About Books

55. “So many books, so little time.” ― Frank Zappa

56. “I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

57. “Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading.” ― Lena Dunham

58. “I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.” ― Benedict Cumberbatch

59. “I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything.” ― Reese Witherspoon

60. “I wouldn’t be a songwriter if it wasn’t for books that I loved as a kid. I think that when you can escape into a book it trains your imagination to think big and to think that more can exist than what you see.” ― Taylor Swift 

61. “Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said…” As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells…and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…both strange and familiar.” ― Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

62. “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” ― Oscar Wilde

63. “A book is a gift you can open again and again.” ― Garrison Keillor

64. “Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” ― Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes Books, Tenth Anniversary Book

Book Quotes From Books

65. “What she needs are stories. Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.” ― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

66. “What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked, limping back to his bed. “Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione. “When we’re looking for the Horcruxes.” “Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library”.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

67. “It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.” ― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

68. “Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.” ― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

69. “Your mail could’ve waited.” Daemon followed me into the kitchen. “What is it? Just books?” Grabbing the OJ from the fridge, I sighed. People who didn’t heart books didn’t understand.” ― Jennifer L. Armentrout, Onyx

70. “Nice things don’t happen in storybooks,” Taryn says. “Or when they do happen, something bad happens next. Because otherwise the story would be boring, and no one would read it.” ― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince