I can easily do without people (there are days when I could easily do without myself), and ... in the country of books where I dwell, the dead can count entirely as much as the living.
Take then this Book, look into it, and show me when Jesus was not forgiving. Read this diving tragedy and tell me where He speaks without mercy and compassion. You visit not the sick and the imprisoned; nor do you feed the hungry or give refuge to the stranger or comfort to the mourner.
When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.
The images of mens wits and knowledge remain in books. They generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Barontage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; . . .
The book is all in us. Fool, hearest not thou? In thine own heart day and night is singing that Eternal Music - Sachchidânanda, soham, soham - Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, I am He, I am He.
I am a person that is very curious about what is going on in the world and there are a lot of subjects to write about, you meet a lot of interesting people. But one idea will be there and it will show up without any logic. It is a book that has been written in my heart before it is written into sentences.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
The Vedas give information on various subjects. They have come together and form one book. And in later times, when other subjects were separated from religion - when astronomy and astrology were taken out of religion - these subjects, being connected with the Vedas and being ancient, were considered very holy.
Television viewing has become for me a completely different experience, because I don't watch shows on a weekly basis. I wait until the DVD or I TiVo everything and wait until the end of a season and watch it all over a weekend. For me that's a really satisfying experience, like reading a book.
I don't know if the books are making the world a much better place. I don't write with that objective. What I know is that I see my readers creating a critical mass so we can at least understand this world in a different way.
On the Day of Judgment, the servant of Allah will be given his book of deeds, where he finds rewards for things he did not do, so he asks: O My Lord, where did I get these deeds?
So Allah replies to him saying: These are because of the people who backbited you and you did not know about it.
Consider the Koran... this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value.