Only in Books: Writers, Readers & Bibliophiles on Their Passion

When writers aren’t writing books, they’re often writing about books. (“A room without books is a body without a soul” –Cicero, p. 47), or about being a writer (“I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker,” –Gwendolyn Brooks, p. 29), about technique (“Style and structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash” –Vladimir Nabokov, p. 165), about other writers (“Indeed there are few better ways of spending a hilarious evening then in recalling the worst lines in English poetry” –W. H. Auden, p. 8), or publishing (“Yes, I suppose some editors are failed writers–but so are most writers” –T.S. Eliot, p. 76), about the writing life (“I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning” –Peter deVries, p. 64), or reading (“He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it” –Joseph Heller, p. 106).
Only in Books is the most complete and up-to-date collection of quotes in print on books and writing–over a thousand quotations, inspiring and amusing, familiar and surprising–guaranteed to delight book lovers everywhere. From Woody Allen to Emile Zola, Herman Melville to Toni Morrison, Only in Books presents the best of what has been said and written about books.
For anyone who agrees with Tomas Jefferson’s exclamation “I cannot live without books” or with Franz Kafka, “A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our souls.” Only in Books is the perfect book-side companion.