“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”

“Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.”

“Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and keeping, one way or another, in books, in records, in people's heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from moths, silverfish, rust and dry rot and men with matches.”

“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”

“It's the way God runs the world."Tom thought about this for a moment."He's all right, Doug," said Tom. "He tries.”

“Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple the population. Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?”

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”