Christopher Morley Quotes

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love, and like that colossal adventure it is an experience of great social import. Even as the tranced swain, the booklover yearns to tell others of his bliss.

Do you know why people are reading more books now than ever before? Because the terrific catastrophe of the war has made them realize that their minds are ill. The world was suffering from all sorts of mental fevers and aches and disorders, and never knew it. Now our mental pangs are only too manifest. We are all reading, hungrily, hastily, trying to find out — after the trouble is over — what was the matter with our minds.

This book Is intended to be read in bed. Please do not attempt to read it anywhere else.

I went to the theatre with the author of a successful play. He insisted on explaining everything. He told me what to watch, the details of the direction, the errors of the property man, the foibles of the star. He anticipated all of my surprises and ruined the evening. Never again! And mark you, the greatest author of all made no such mistake.

My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated, but not signed.

Poetry is like an unexpected noise in the night: the creak of a door, a footstep on the porch, the soft scuffle of a moth against the screen, which rouses every sense to an instant alert. So comes poetry to the drowsy mind, which startles a moment, wonders, and returns to sleep.

Wars are won in the mind before they can be won on the field.

Vede, i libri contengono i pensieri e i sogni degli uomini, le loro speranze e i loro sforzi e tutti i loro ruoli immortali. È attraverso i libri che la maggior parte di noi arriva a comprendere quanto la vita sia magnificamente degna di essere vissuta. [...] I libri rappresentano l'immortalità della razza, il padre e la madre di tutto quanto merita di essere nutrito nei nostri cuori. Diffondere buoni libri, seminarli in cervelli fertili, propagare la comprensione e l'amore per la vita e per la bellezza, non è questa una missione abbastanza alta per un uomo? Il libraio è realmente lo stendardo della verità.

It's in books that most of us learn how splendidly worth-while life is.

Malnutrition of the reading faculty is a serious thing. Let us prescribe for you.

As far as I can see, a man who's fond of books never need starve!

But, as our friend Samuel Butler says, he that is stupid in little will also be stupid in much.

I think reading a good book makes one modest. When you see the marvelous insight into human nature which a truly great book shows, it is bound to make you feel small — like looking at the Dipper on a clear night, or seeing the winter sunrise when you go out to collect the morning eggs. And anything that makes you feel small is mighty good for you.

No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversations as a dog does

Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.