A Celebration of Books

-
"A book is a link between the past and the future. It is a bridge between generations and across cultures. It is a force for creating and sharing wisdom and knowledge." --Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of World Book and Copyright Day

Today is UNESCO's World Book & Copyright Day 2016 and in celebration I would like to share with you some of my favorite quotes about books and reading (and writing).

I am also putting my book - Write Your Life! - on SALE starting today through the end of May. For the next five weeks you may buy a print copy for $9.99 (down from $12.99) and the e-book version for $0.99 (down from $1.99). 

I hope you will find a way today to celebrate books and their role in your life: Grab a book off of  your bedside table, flop down on the couch and just read. Take a trip to your local library or favorite bookstore and bring home  stack of new (to you) books. Or, if you have always wanted to write a book, START TODAY. Put pen to paper (or finger to keys) and just write.

However you celebrate, I wish you a very happy World Book & Copyright Day!

~  * ~
"God has written all the books." --Samuel Butler quoted in the book "You Can Write a Book in a Weekend" by Tom Bird 

~  *  ~  
"A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling. We storytellers are all ancient mariners, and none of us is justified in stopping wedding guests unless he has something more unusual to relate that the ordinary experiences of every average man and woman." --Thomas Hardy, quoted in "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving
~  *  ~
"Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world." --Tom Clancy from the "Creative Writing Now" newsletter
~  *  ~
"I divide all readers into two classes: Those who read to remember and those who read to forget." William Lyon Phelps quoted in the book “Literacy and Longing in LA” by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack
 ~  *  ~
"...[W]hat matters are the true friends you make, the activities you throw yourself into, the books you read, the skills and knowledge you acquire. Those experiences - the ones that make you stronger, smarter, and braver - are what really matter...." --Michelle Obama in a magazine interview
~  *  ~ 
"Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their very own content." --Paul Valery from a Good Earth tea bag
~  *  ~ 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wisdom from Raul Julia

-
"...[L]ife itself is a meditation."  --Raul Julia I have always loved Raul Julia, since I first saw him as the sensitive married man having sexual tension with Susan Sarandon while solving a murder in "Compromising Positions" (the cast of which also included the always entertaining Judith Ivey - I love her voice and demeanor so much I think I could watch her in anything). He went on to play defense attorney Sandy Stern in "Presumed Innocent" and of course the beloved patriarch Gomez Addams in "The Addams Family."  His was one the first celebrity deaths - in 1994 - to really effect me. He always seemed to have an undefinably quiet strength and grace. I get it now - he saw his life as a meditation - and that makes all the difference.  I hope someday to be remembered for my quiet grace and thanks to Raul I have one more clue about how to do that. Thanks Raul. For everything.
Read more

Quote of the Week - May 21, 2012 - What happens for one...

-
“On this earth we are connected one to another....to another....to another....to another...to another....to another....to another...such that whatever happens to one of happens to all of us.” -- Anna Grossnickle Hines from her book, "Peaceful Pieces" This is a poem called "Dominoes" that my younger son's class read last week on Friday for " Poetry Aloud ." They read it together as a class, one child starting and each child in turn saying "to another," "to another," "to another..." As I listened, the poem came alive for me. The idea of the poem came alive for me. I saw once again that we are all connected, we are all One and that whatever happens for one of us happens to all of us. Did you notice the Freudian slip there? I wrote, "whatever happens for one of us happens to all of us,"  when what I meant to write was, "whatever happens to one of us happens to all of us." But both are equally tr
Read more

28 Days of Kindness: Day 25

-
Every generation is a life-and-death struggle between wisdom and ignorance,  and there is no guarantees wisdom is going to win.  We have to try to be as human as we can be,  and as kind as we can be, and detach from our need for results.  -- Peter Coyote  ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Be as human as you can be. Practice kindness. 28 Days of Kindness .
Read more