World Book Day - April 23:

World Book Day - April 23

What an astonishing thing a book is.

It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.

But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person,

maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.

Across the millennia,

an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head,

directly to you.

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions,

binding together people who never knew each other,

citizens of distant epochs.

Books break the shackles of time.

A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

- Carl Sagan.

Jane Austen, on books:

If a book is well written, I always find it too short.

- Jane Austen.

Books make you ...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on libraries:

The love of learning,

the sequestered nooks,

and all the sweet serenity of books.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Stephen King, on writing:

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration.

the rest of us just get up and go to work.

- Stephen King.

Mark Twain, on writing:

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

- Mark Twain.

Pablo Picasso, on imagination:

Everything you can imagine is real.

- Pablo Picasso.

Andrew Carnegie, on libraries:

A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people.

It is a never failing spring in the desert.

- Andrew Carnegie.

Zadie Smith, on libraries:

The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know.

It was absolutely essential.

- Zadie Smith.

Zig Ziglar, on dedication:

You don't have to be great to start,

but you have to start to be great.

- Zig Ziglar.

Andrea Barrett, on writing:

I've never known a writer who didn't feel ill at ease in the world.

We all feel unhoused in some sense.

That's part of why we write.

We feel we don't fit in, that this world is not our world, that though we may move in it, were not of it.

You don't need to write a novel if you feel at home in the world.

- Andrea Barrett.

Writing motivation:

Meg Cabot, on writing:

Write the kind of story you would like to read.

People will give you all sorts of advice about writing,

but if you are not writing something you like,

no one else will like it either.

- Meg Cabot.

John Wooden, on learning:

The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated.

Repetition is the key to learning.

- John Wooden.

Harper Lee, on writing:

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that,

before developing his talent,

he would be wise to develop a thick hide.

- Harper Lee.

Howard Jacobson, on writing:

When people speak to me of the torment of writing, I can think only of what it was like before I wrote:

once writing meant writing and not thinking about writing, I knew nothing of any torment.

- Howard Jacobson.

Ray Bradbury, on writing:

I'm not in control of my muse.

My muse does all the work.

- Ray Bradbury.

Wisdom:

Meditate.

Live purely.

Be quiet.

Do your work with mastery.

Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds!

Shine.

- Buddha.

Confucius, on work:

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

- Confucius.

Books ... the best distraction:

The world no longer exists once I start a good book.