Quote

It's not progress to take books off shelves. If one more person says this [ebooks] is the new Gutenberg, I will probably commit homicide, because the whole point of Gutenberg was to put books on shelves, not to take them off.

Jeanette Winterson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jeanette Winterson
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: August 27
Author
Film Producer
Journalist
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Writer
Manchester
England
Person
Shelves
Book
Commit
Take
Progress
Whole
Says
Probably
Books
Ebooks
Point
Gutenberg
Persons
Homicide

More quotes by Jeanette Winterson

Image
How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange?
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Creativity is on the side of health - it isn't the thing that drives us mad it is the capacity in us that tries to save us from madness.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Slightest accidents open up new worlds.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Autobiography is not important. Authenticity is important. The writer must fire herself through the text, be the molten stuff that welds together disparate elements. I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Make three wishes and they shall all come true. Make three hundred and I will honour every one
Jeanette Winterson
Image
It’s better to think of my life like that— part miracle, part madness. It’s better if I accept that I can’t control any of the things that matter. My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails. There are no arrivals, no destinations there are only sandbanks and shipwreck then another boat, another tide.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
I used to think marriage was a plate-glass window just begging for a brick.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Working-class families in the north of England used to hear the 1611 Bible regularly at church and at home ... for us, the language didn't seem too difficult. I especially liked 'the quick and the dead' - you really get a feel for the difference if you live in a house with mice and a mousetrap.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets?
Jeanette Winterson
Image
I've never been tempted by God but I like his trappings.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
I didn’t want to tell the story of myself, but someone I called myself. If you read yourself as fiction, it’s rather more liberating than reading yourself as fact.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Perhaps all romance is like that not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
Knowing that books are something that is hidden, that almost has that alchemical quality to it. There is a secret society in here, and if you belong to it, you'll be able to transform your lead into gold. I have that rather magical sense about books - that they do, somehow, have special powers.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
If people aren't educated, they can't question. If they can't question, they can't change anything, which is great for the status quo and all the people who can question them at their own level.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
If art, all art, is concerned with truth, then a society in denial will not find much use for it.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
What you risk reveals what you value.
Jeanette Winterson
Image
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
Jeanette Winterson