Books have the power to inspire, heal, and transform—and the right words can stay with us forever. In this collection of book quotes, you’ll find timeless wisdom, moving reflections, and inspiring thoughts from the world’s greatest authors. Whether you’re seeking motivation, comfort, or a deeper love for reading, these book quotes will spark your imagination and touch your heart. Dive in and rediscover the magic hidden in every page.
Related: Positive Quotes to Stay Motivated Every Day
Table of Contents
Today Book Quotes ideas
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
“Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” — Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“Call me Ishmael.” — Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.” — John Green, Looking for Alaska
“Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
“We accept the love we think we deserve.” — Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.” — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
“There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway.” — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” — Abraham Lincoln (often quoted in many books)
“Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.” — S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
“The only limits for tomorrow are the doubts we have today.” — Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four
Quotes About Books and Reading
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” — Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
“Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up.” — Veronica Roth, Divergent
“Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means you go on even though you’re scared.” — Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” — William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.” — Alice Walker, The Color Purple
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
“You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.” — Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible!’” — Audrey Hepburn (inspired books)
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.” — J.K. Rowling, The Prisoner of Azkaban
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” — J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
“We are all fools in love.” — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges
“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.” — Cormac McCarthy, The Road
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“I am haunted by humans.” — Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” — Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“You can’t live your life for other people.” — Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.” — Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Book Quotes About Love
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” — Stephen King, On Writing
“The past is not dead. It isn’t even past.” — William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
“Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light, the moon understands what it means to be human.” — Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
“If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all.” — John Green, Paper Towns
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell, Animal Farm
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” — George Orwell, 1984
“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.” — E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” — George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C.S. Lewis
“The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.” — Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
“It is impossible to live without failing at something.” — J.K. Rowling, Very Good Lives
“All that is gold does not glitter.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.” — Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights.” — Bram Stoker, Dracula
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“Freedom lies in being bold.” — Robert Frost (quoted in several books)
Quotes in the Book
“If you have the guts to be yourself, other people’ll pay your price.” — John Updike, Rabbit, Run
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” — Stephen King, On Writing
“Man is not made for defeat.” — Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” — Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.” — John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” — Kathryn Stockett, The Help
“The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” — Albert Einstein (frequently quoted in books)
“We loved with a love that was more than love.” — Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” — Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further.” — Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
“You can’t stop the future. You can’t rewind the past.” — Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — E.E. Cummings
“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.” — William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.” — Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” — Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
“It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone.” — Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” — Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
“All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.” — Alan Moore, Watchmen
Best Quotes from Books
“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” — Jane Austen, Emma
“That’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.” — John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.” — Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” — Stephen King, The Shining
“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.” — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” — Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“A word after a word after a word is power.” — Margaret Atwood
“What’s past is prologue.” — William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print.” — Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” — George Eliot
“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” — William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
“Dreams feel real while we’re in them.” — Christopher Nolan, Inception (novelization reference)
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” — John Milton, Paradise Lost
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“She wasn’t looking for a knight. She was looking for a sword.” — Atticus Poetry
“The only way to deal with this life meaningfully is to find beauty in the smallest details.” — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” — James A. Garfield (popularized in many books)
“We were the lucky ones. Not because we survived, but because we knew what it meant to love.” — Georgia Hunter, We Were the Lucky Ones
“All men dream, but not equally.” — T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
The Outsiders Book Quotes
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” — Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
“The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” — Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
“For you, a thousand times over.” — Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” — John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
“Whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve had today.” — David Nicholls, One Day
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You can’t change what’s done, you can only move on.” — Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
“You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.” — Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” — Albert Einstein (quoted in books like “The World As I See It”)
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” — Ernest Hemingway
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
“You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.” — William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” — Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
“Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.” — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already.” — J.K. Rowling
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.” — Albert Einstein (quoted in multiple literary works)
Famous Quotes from Books
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“The heart was made to be broken.” — Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain.” — Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” — William Faulkner
“It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.” — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“Love is a better teacher than duty.” — Albert Einstein (quoted in “The Evolution of Physics”)
“He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.” — Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt, This Is My Story
“To define is to limit.” — Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.” — Jane Austen, Persuasion
“We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” — J.K. Rowling, The Goblet of Fire
“Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” — Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” — William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.” — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West (quoted in many books)
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” — Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.” — Albert Camus, The Stranger
“Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.” — Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” — John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Inspirational Quotes About Books
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” — William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” — Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark
“It is never too late to be wise.” — Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernard Shaw
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” — Ernest Hemingway
“There is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon.” — Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
“We were together. I forget the rest.” — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
“It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.” — Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin, The Seduction of the Minotaur
“Every man dies, not every man really lives.” — William Wallace (popularized in literature and film)
“When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example.” — Roxane Gay, Hunger
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” — Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight.” — Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” — Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words—wait and hope.” — Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
“We are most alive when we’re in love.” — John Updike
“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” — Muriel Rukeyser, The Speed of Darkness
“Everything you can imagine is real.” — Pablo Picasso (quoted in many art and philosophy books)
“The world was hers for the reading.” — Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” — Pablo Neruda
Quotes in Books About Love
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” — Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” — Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
“The trouble is, you think you have time.” — Jack Kornfield (often quoted in literary works)
“It takes a very long time to become young.” — Pablo Picasso
“You have to die a few times before you can really live.” — Charles Bukowski
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” — Plutarch (quoted in many educational works)
“No story lives unless someone wants to listen.” — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.” — Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” — Thomas Mann
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.” — Mulan (adapted literary quote)
“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” — Paulo Coelho
“Reality continues to ruin my life.” — Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
“The eyes are useless when the mind is blind.” — Anonymous (often cited in philosophy books)
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” — Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
“The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.” — Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi (quoted in many books)
“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” — Roald Dahl
Book Quotes About Life
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“The past beats inside me like a second heart.” — John Banville, The Sea
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“The most important things are the hardest to say.” — Stephen King, The Body
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
“We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” — Ernest Hemingway (often attributed)
“Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.” — Alan Turing (quoted in The Imitation Game)
“Even monsters need a little love.” — Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution
“To be loved is to be seen.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” — Emily Dickinson
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.” — David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
“What is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“No one can tell what goes on between the person you were and the person you become.” — Stephen King, The Stand
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” — Flannery O’Connor
“I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.” — Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
“The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.” — Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” — Virginia Woolf, The Hours
“Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it.” — Gabriel García Márquez, Living to Tell the Tale
Books and Love Quotes
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” — Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married
“Happiness only real when shared.” — Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
“The world is full of willing people—some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.” — Robert Frost
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.” — Plato (quoted in literature)
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” — Ernest Hemingway
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes.” — Alyson Noel, Evermore
“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“Do not go gentle into that good night.” — Dylan Thomas (quoted in countless literary works)
“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.” — Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat
“We’re all mad here.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” — Nat King Cole (often cited in literary anthologies)
“Every atom of me and every atom of you were once part of a star.” — Ernest Hemingway (inspired by Carl Sagan’s writings)
“You can’t pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of something means accepting all of it.” — Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.” — J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
“We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one.” — Steven Moffat, Doctor Who novel adaptation
“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” — Saul Bellow
“We read to know we’re not alone.” — William Nicholson, Shadowlands
“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” — C.S. Lewis
Inspiring Quotes from Books
“I am not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” — Woody Allen (quoted in literary humor collections)
“We are captives of our own identities, living in prisons of our own creation.” — Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
“The world will be saved and remade by the dreamers.” — Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” — André Gide, Autumn Leaves
“When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.” — Albert Camus, A Happy Death
“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.” — J.K. Rowling, The Deathly Hallows
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” — Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” — Mahatma Gandhi (quoted in literature)
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” — Saint Augustine
“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.” — David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
“There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.” — Rumi (quoted in literature)
“None of us can choose where we will love.” — David Levithan, Every Day
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin
“The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.” — Bill Cosby, Fatherhood
“Do I dare disturb the universe?” — T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
“If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.” — Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” — Joseph Brodsky
“We live for books.” — Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” — John Steinbeck, East of Eden
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