The best Quotes by George Steiner

The best Quotes by George Steiner

Francis George Steiner (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, as well as the impact of the Holocaust. A 2001 article in The Guardian described Steiner as a "polyglot and polymath".

The age of the book is almost gone.

We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning.

National Socialism

Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.

The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.

The journalistic vision sharpens to the point of maximum impact every event, every individual and social configuration; but the honing is uniform.

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So you're single? In Paris? Now I'm even more jealous. I mean, your life is croissants and sex.

Madeline Wheeler in Emily in Paris - Season 1 Episode 3

1

I make the most money, I think, in Russia and Paris, for the people of those countries are so willing to be amused, so eager to see something new and out of the ordinary.

Harry Houdini

1

If Paris is a city of lights, Sydney is the city of fireworks.

Baz Luhrmann

1

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.

Friedrich Nietzsche

1

Quagmire: "You got to help me. I'm looking for a little boy with red overalls and a yellow shirt."
French Man: "You are looking to buy or to rent?"
Quagmire: "What? No! God! How is Paris considered a classy city?"
French Man: "The buildings are beautiful, the people are trash."

Glenn Quagmire in Family Guy

Do you realize this city is laid out in circles? Like they deliberately designed it to confuse us.

Emily Cooper in Emily in Paris - Season 1 Episode 2

Paris seems like a big city, but it's really just a small town.

Camille in Emily in Paris - Season 1 Episode 4

Of course, I love Paris. And the food is so delicious. The fashion, so chic. The lights, so magical. But the people, so mean.

Mindy Chen in Emily in Paris - Season 1 Episode 1

It's Paris. Everyone's serious about dinner.

Mindy Chen in Emily in Paris - Season 1 Episode 2

You haven't done Paris right until you've had at least one wildly inappropriate affair.

Mindy Chen in Emily in Paris - Season 1 Episode 4

What's the name of that famous museum in Paris? The Louvre? I went through that place in 20 minutes.

The Parisian has his amus*ments as regularly as his meals, the theatre, music, the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection in the cafe, to which ladies resort as commonly as the other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual labor, is a thing of which he seems to have no idea.

William Cullen Bryant

I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries.

Look at London or Paris: they're both filthy. You don't get that in Tokyo. The proud residents look after their city.

Paris London Tokyo

When God feels bored, he opens a window and observes the boulevards of Paris.

Heinrich Heine

One of Paris' amenities is that you can be born here, live here, die here without anyone even noticing.

Honoré de Balzac - Le Père Goriot, 1834-1835

Paris means walking.

Victor Hugo

Paris is the only city in the world where starving oneself is still considered art.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone.

Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones - Season 1 Episode 2

23

Books Mind & Apprehension Intelligence

"One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us."

Cassandra Clare in The Infernal Devices

16

If you have never spent whole afternoons with burning ears and rumpled hair, forgetting the world around you over a book, forgetting cold and hunger-

If you have never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight, because your father or mother or some other well-meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early-

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless-

If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.

Michael Ende in The Neverending Story

13

I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.

Joanne K. Rowling

12

If you don't like to read you haven't found the right book.

Joanne K. Rowling

12

Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón in The Shadow of the Wind

12

Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón in The Shadow of the Wind

11

Vogel: "What does the diary tell you that it doesn't tell us?"
Dr. Henry Jones: "It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!"

Henry Jones in Indiana Jones - 3: and the Last Crusade

1

National Socialism

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

Martin Niemöller

National Socialism

In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.

Elie Wiesel

National Socialism

We must never forget she was just 21 years old when she was killed by the Nazis, but she possessed a life-affirming personality no dictatorship could ever silence.

Frank McDonough - about Sophie Scholl

National Socialism

Some a-hole leaks it online and I'm like, you know, looking at the guy in the mirror brushing my teeth, "Dude, what have you done? This could be punishable by law!" But the internet forced the studio to say, "We're gonna make this movie", and 24 hours later, that movie had a green light.

Ryan Reynolds - September 2025

But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff, it's sordid but it's boring and I don't understand why it keeps going.

Donald Trump - July 2025

The Epstein Files

There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those who've been hacked by the Chinese, and those who don't know they've been hacked by the Chinese.

James Comey

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