Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

When we have the information highway, I'll put it out there. Everybody who wants to pay, I don't know, one cent, can see what movies I'm watching and what books I'm reading and certain other information. If I'm still interesting, I'll rack up dollars as people access that part of the highway. 1994.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.

The great book of nature is written in mathematical symbols.

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 Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.

The hotel shop only had two decent books, and I'd written both of them.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.