Norman Cousins Book Quotations

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

A book is like a piece of rope; it takes on meaning only in connection with the things it holds together.

The way a book is read, which is to say, the qualities a reader brings to a book can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it.

The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one's one devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life.

The way a book is read which is to say, the qualities a reader brings to a book can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it.