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1 " The books we love offer a sketch of a whole universe that we secretly inhabit, and in which we desire the other person to assume a role.One of the conditions of happy romantic compatibility is, if not to have read the same books, to have read at least some books in common with the other person—which means, moreover, to have non-read the same books. From the beginning of the relationship, then, it is crucial to show that we can match the expectations of our beloved by making him or her sense the proximity of our inner libraries. "
― Pierre Bayard , How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read
2 " And books, they offer one hope -- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved. "
― Anne Rice , Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles, #9)
3 " I couldn't help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. "
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón , The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
4 " Knowledge drifts in and out of my mind" , said Lestat with a little look of honest distress and a shake of his head. " I devour it and then I lose it and sometimes I can't reach for any knowledge that I ought to possess. I feel desolate, but then knowledge returns or I seek it out in a knew source." (...)" But you love books, then" , Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen." Oh, yes," Lestat said. " Sometimes they're the only thing that keeps me alive." " What a thing to say at your age" , she laughed." No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. " And books, they offer one hope - that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved. "
5 " But you love books, then,” Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.“Oh, yes,” Lestat said. “Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive.”“What a strange thing to say at your age,” she laughed.“No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don’t you think? The young are eternally desperate,” he said frankly. “And books, they offer one hope —- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved. "
6 " As I walked in the dark through the tunnels and tunnels of books, I could not help being overcome by a sense of sadness. I couldn't help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot. "
7 " Fictional characters exert a great deal of influence over our choices in love by representing inaccessible ideals to which we try to make others conform, usually without success. But more subtly, too, the books we love offer a sketch of a whole universe that we secretly inhabit, and in which we desire the other person to assume a role. "
8 " No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don’t you think? The young are eternally desperate,” he said frankly. “And books, they offer hope — that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe one is saved. "
9 " Without further ado I left the place, finding my route by the marks I had made on the way in. As I walked in the dark through the tunnels and tunnels of books, I could not help being overcome by a sense of sadness. I couldn't help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot. "
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón
10 " Yet in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice. "
― Christopher Hitchens , God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
11 " In the end I sort of though we created a companion who was so alive and dynamic and so wedded to the doctor that you’d need a whole universe to contain her in. The only way to get rid of her is to send her into a parallel world from which she can never return "
12 " A thought, no matter how small and forgotten, always has an eternal impact on the Cosmos. Most times, we can only see the material and just about beyond the immediate, but if we could trace this thought through all Creation... well, it would be a whole universe in itself. "
― Adriano Bulla
13 " I couldn't help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot. "
