A Quote by Sophie Hannah

My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In The Library.' — © Sophie Hannah
My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In The Library.'
I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956 with my brothers and sisters and first cousins, I was only 16 years old, we went down to the public library trying to check out some books and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for colors! It was a public library! I never went back to that public library until July 5th, 1998, by this time I'm in the Congress, for a book signing of my book "Walking with the Wind"
I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.
So when the book came out, my mother stunned us all by leaving my father. I think three months before the book came out, she left my father the day he retired from the Marine Corps. They had a parade and march, and she came home and left.
Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
[D]on't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read.
There were a lot of things I loved about working in a library, but mostly I miss the library patrons. I love books, but books are everywhere. Library patrons are as various and oddball and democratic as library books.
At one point I took a copy of Berkeley's Principles from my father's library. That was the first philosophy book I read. I found it fascinating and wanted to read more philosophy.
Some books I've kept because the binding is beautiful - I'm unlikely ever to read my grandmother's copy of 'The Life of Lord Nelson.' I'm addicted to secondhand bookshops.
Look, I was taught, and I taught my children, if they ever came back from school saying 'Oh, so and so's father's got a helicopter, it's not fair,' I'd say, 'Fair? Whoever said life had to be fair? Is it fair that you live in Kensington Palace? That you've each got a pony? There are an awful lot of kids without a pony, you know.'
To compare Olympic sport with cricket would not be fair. Years back, cricket was a sport only for the classes, and we will also have to make other sports masses from classes like cricket.
Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.
I remember as a young child, during one of my frequent trips to the local library, spending hours looking at book after book trying in vain to find one that had my name on it. Because there were so many books in the library, with so many different names on them, I’d assumed that one of them — somewhere — had to be mine. I didn’t understand at the time that a person’s name appears on a book because he or she wrote it. Now that I’m twenty-six I know better. If I were ever going to find my book one day, I was going to have to write it.
That happens on a cricket field. People have a go at each other. That's fair, that's fine. It's called Test cricket. It's not a day in the park.
When I was twelve, I decided to become a chef. I stole a book from the library about the greatest restaurants in France. I'd flip the pages and dream. I should return that book to the library some day.
A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book.
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