There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
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There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
quote by Oscar Wilde
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Batman Combats Oscar Wilde
“Are you serious? ” Frederick asked.
“Yes, Oscar Wilde, the writer”, George Batman said. “We had a conversation in the park.”
“Oh”, said Frederick. “Is he not dead? ”
“We had a conversation in the park”, Batman said.
“I see”, said Frederick.
“You remember that in The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde argues that books cannot be moral or immoral, only well-written or badly written”, Batman commented.
“So? ”
“Well, I disagreed.”
“And why is that? ” Frederick inquired.
“Look. Wilde confuses content with style. A book with a moral message can either fail or excel in its stylistic presentation, and so can a book with immoral content.”
“I see”, said Frederick. “So what happened? ”
“Nothing special”, Batman said. “We continued to argue. I told Oscar that I am not impressed with some of his witty dictums.”
“Oh”, Frederick said. “What did Wilde say? ”
“He wanted to hear examples”, Batman said.
“Did you give him? ”
“Yes, of course. I started with the ‘The truth is rarely pure, and never simple’, from The Importance of Being Earnest.”
“What is wrong with that? ” Frederick asked.
“I told Wilde that his purified statement is self-contradictory because it is so simple that it cannot be true”.
“I see”, Frederick said. “What else? ”
“Well”, said Batman, “I also told him that I disagreed with the aphorism that ‘Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood’. This is a derogatory and false comment on the psychology of women, belittling female intelligence and dignity. Besides, not only that men also want to be loved, but love and understanding can be overlapping as well.”
“What did Wilde say? ”
“I don’t know. He is dead”.
poem by Paul Hartal
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How funny it would be if dreamy I
How funny it would be if dreamy I
Should leave one book behind me when I die
And that a book of Law—this silly thing
Just written for the money it will bring.
I do hope, when it's finished, I'll have time
For other books and better spurts of rhyme.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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I have also written a book about the Giving of the Torah, and a book on the Days of Awe, and a book on the books of Israel that have been written since the day the Torah was given to Israel.
quote by Shmuel Y. Agnon
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Book Of Life
Is my name written there on those pages bright and fair
Is my name written in the book of life
If you want to be up there then down here you must prepare
And your name must be in the book of life
Get down on your knees and pray you from sin must turn away
Or your name won't be in the book of life
If you'll turn to Jesus now at his feet just humbly bow
Then your name will be in the book of life
Don't you know that Christ was sent that from sin you could repent
So your name could be in the book of life
You will have a great surprise if you fell to recognize
That your name must be in the book of life
Get down on your knees and pray you from sin must turn away
Or your name won't be in the book of life
Don't delay and don't forget that from sin you could repent
Then your name will be in the book of life
Is my name written in the book of life
song performed by by Dolly Parton
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The Book
My life is a leaf
Bind together in a book
Written
With sweat and blood
Pages after pages
With the taste of Pain and joy
Every emotion
Big or small
Fully charged
Packed and sealed
Every incident
Recoded in details
For the experience
Good or bad
If you want to learn
Whether there is any love
For you and mankind
You just need to turn
The page number twenty one
Chapter after chapter
Written with mixture
Of success and failure
If any one
Written badly
And Tastes sour
It is my life
Full of blood and flesh
Please pass on to another
poem by Abdul Wahab
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I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them.
quote by Gene Wolfe
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Every one of my books is written from the viewpoint of cops, with the exception of my book Killer on the Road, which is written from the viewpoint of a serial killer.
quote by James Ellroy
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It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers - for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean.
quote by Norton Juster
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The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
quote by Albert Einstein
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I think I learned a lot from reading in general - even from reading badly written books.
quote by Margaret Haddix
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All the books I have written have been one book, from the beginning.
quote by Marguerite Young
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There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.
quote by Mark Twain
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There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible.
quote by Mark Rylance
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I've written a lot of books which are written from the moon - the view from nowhere.
quote by Clifford Geertz
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Every well-written book is a light for me. When you write, you use other writers and their books as guides in the wilderness.
quote by Kate DiCamillo
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The Only Person Who
The problem with an open book, is it can't know
How it feels, what it says, who it is.... only show
The problem with an open book is its fraught with confusion yet no answer
With danger yet no protection
How can i run from her?
When she's written all over me like an inscription
Open books don't have a say
Open books won't last more than a day
If left open, they cannot defend or close
Can't run away, no toes
Even if it's all an illusion
This delusion
This me, I'm the open book because I'm the the only
One who can't read me
The only one who doesn't know how I feel
So please tell me because I get hurt, but no one heals
I feel this way or that
But to me I don't know what is fact
What is dreamed and what is real
The only person who doesn't know me is me
Someone close it or kill it so then no one can see
poem by David Knox
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A Reader’s Daydream
In books written by scholars
With an element enforced on words
You read with your subconscious
And digest all you’ve heard
Your mind suggest a vision of what immortal life could be
As you wish is silent whisper that your life this way could lead
Then back to reality you frown
As you stumble over words the author has written down.
(date written unknown)
poem by David Harris
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Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.
quote by Thomas Hardy
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Soldier Boy
(words & music by david jones - theodore williams)
Soldier boy why feel blue
Dont you believe that she will be true
Its written in the book
That she was meant for only you
Soldier boy tell me why do you cry
When you return shell rush to your side
Its written in the book
That she was meant for only you
So prove your love is true
Shell be there to say I do
And if you go oer sea or land
Shell make you understand
While youre gone oh try to believe
Her love for you is really for real
Its written in the book
That she was meant for only you
So prove your love is true
Shell be there to say I do
And if you go oer sea or land
Shell make you understand
While youre gone oh try to believe
Her love for you is really for real
Its written in the book
That she was meant for only you
song performed by by Elvis Presley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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