A Quote by Alexander McCall Smith

Fiction is able to encompass books that are bleak and which dwell on the manifold and terrible problems of our times. But I don't think that all books need to have that particular focus.

Alexander McCall Smith

Quote Topics

Able Bleak Books Dwell Encompass Fiction Focus Manifold Need Our Our Time Particular Problems Terrible Think Times Which

Quote Author

Alexander McCall Smith
Scottish - Writer
Born: August 24, 1948

Without books we're a very uneducated society. Think of the places books have taken us, the people we've been introduced to (fiction or non-fiction) and how books have allowed us to broaden our vocabulary.

Tom Robinson

I'd finished the first two [books] and they were going to to be published, and [editor] said, "We need you to write a summary that will drive people to these books." And it took forever. I couldn't think of a thing to say. I looked at the back of other children's books that were full of giddy praise and corny rhetorical questions, you know, "Will she have a better time at summer camp than she thinks?" "How will she escape from the troll's dungeon?" All these terrible, terrible summaries of books, and I just couldn't.

Daniel Handler

Solid scriptural theology should be valued in the church. Books in which Scripture is reverently regarded as the only rule of faith and practice-- books in which Christ and the Holy Ghost have their rightful office-- books in which justification, and sanctification, and regeneration, and faith, and grace, and holiness are clearly, distinctly, and accurately delineated and exhibited, these are the only books which do real good. Few things need reviving more than a taste for such books as these among readers.

J. C. Ryle

[Among the books he chooses, a statesman] ought to read interesting books on history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse.

Theodore Roosevelt

There is a lot of talk in publishing these days that we need to become more like the Internet: We need to make books for short attention spans with bells and whistles - books, in short, that are as much like 'Angry Birds' as possible. But I think that's a terrible idea.

John Green

When you talk to people about the books that have meant a lot to them, it's usually books they read when they were younger because the books have this wonder in everyday things that isn't bogged down by excessively grown-up concerns or the need to be subtle or coy... when you read these books as an adult, it tends to bring back the sense of newness and discovery that I tend not to get from adult fiction.

Jesse Sheidlower

Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books have changed my life.

Po Bronson

Usually I read several books at a time - old books, new books, fiction, nonfiction, verse, anything - and when the bedside heap of a dozen volumes or so has dwindled to two or three, which generally happens by the end of one week, I accumulate another pile.

Vladimir Nabokov

I often use detective elements in my books. I love detective novels. But I also think science fiction and detective stories are very close and friendly genres, which shows in the books by Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, and Glen Cook. However, whilst even a tiny drop of science fiction may harm a detective story, a little detective element benefits science fiction. Such a strange puzzle.

Sergei Lukyanenko

I think of this a lot in the terms of books. Of course there's a big to-do culturally about e-books versus print books, sales models. The paradigm has changed but my perspective on it is that there's not going to be another paradigm to alight on because everything will continue to evolve so quickly that our brains won't be able to keep up with it.

Ron Currie Jr.

Boys do not evaluate a book. They divide books into categories. There are sexy books, war books, westerns, travel books, science fiction. A boy will accept anything from a section he knows rather than risk another sort. He has to have the label on the bottle to know it is the mixture as before.

William Golding

Fiction allows for moral questioning, but through the back door. Personally, I like books that make you think - books you're still wondering about three days after you finish them; books you hand to a friend and say "Read this, so we can talk about it."

Jodi Picoult

Electronic books are ideal for people who value the information contained in them, or who have vision problems, or who like to read on the subway, or who do not want other people to see how they are amusing themselves, or who have storage and clutter issues, but they are useless for people who are engaged in an intense, lifelong love affair with books. Books that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on.

Joe Queenan

I write romance, women's fiction, chicklit. I think it all fits very comfortably under the same umbrella. Basically, I write books for women - books about relationships, books that make you laugh and sometimes make you cry a little.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The novels that get praised in the NY Review of Books aren't worth reading. Ninety-seven percent of science fiction is adolescent rubbish, but good science fiction is the best and only literature of our times.