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Top 20 Joe Queenan Quotes (2025 Update)

Joe Queenan Quote: “Lending books to other people is merely a shrewd form of housecleaning.”

1. “Lending books to other people is merely a shrewd form of housecleaning.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Purists maintain that if you go to a baseball game you will almost always see something you have never seen before. Unfortunately, it usually takes place in the stands.”

2. “Purists maintain that if you go to a baseball game you will almost always see something you have never seen before. Unfortunately, it usually takes place in the stands.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Because to the poor, books are not diversions. Book are siege weapons.”

3. “Because to the poor, books are not diversions. Book are siege weapons.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Book lovers are engaged with writers in a private communion that occurs in some vaporous cenacle of the mind.”

4. “Book lovers are engaged with writers in a private communion that occurs in some vaporous cenacle of the mind.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “I was raised as a Catholic and received the body and blood of Jesus Christ every Sunday at communion until I was thirty years of age, when I became a vegetarian.”

5. “I was raised as a Catholic and received the body and blood of Jesus Christ every Sunday at communion until I was thirty years of age, when I became a vegetarian.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Reading is the way mankind delays the inevitable. Reading is the way we shake our fist at the sky. As long as we have these epic, improbable reading projects arrayed before us, we cannot breathe our last: Tell the Angel of Death to come back later; I haven’t quite finished Villette.”

6. “Reading is the way mankind delays the inevitable. Reading is the way we shake our fist at the sky. As long as we have these epic, improbable reading projects arrayed before us, we cannot breathe our last: Tell the Angel of Death to come back later; I haven’t quite finished Villette.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Every life, even the best ones, ends in sadness. Books hold out hope that things may end otherwise.”

7. “Every life, even the best ones, ends in sadness. Books hold out hope that things may end otherwise.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “It was once argued that ‘Starring Sylvester Stallone’ were the three scariest words in the English language but until I saw Adam Sandler I’d always thought the three scariest words in the English language were ‘starring Dan Aykroyd.’”

8. “It was once argued that ‘Starring Sylvester Stallone’ were the three scariest words in the English language but until I saw Adam Sandler I’d always thought the three scariest words in the English language were ‘starring Dan Aykroyd.’”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “At long last, I felt a sense of accomplishment and a sense of closure. In the secret places of my very small heart, I had long entertained dreams of coming back in my next life as a moron.”

9. “At long last, I felt a sense of accomplishment and a sense of closure. In the secret places of my very small heart, I had long entertained dreams of coming back in my next life as a moron.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “If you have read 6,000 books in your lifetime, or even 600, it’s probably because at some level you find ‘reality’ a bit of a disappointment.”

10. “If you have read 6,000 books in your lifetime, or even 600, it’s probably because at some level you find ‘reality’ a bit of a disappointment.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Saddling another person with a book he did not ask for has always seemed to me like a huge psychological imposition, like forcing someone to eat a chicken biryani without so much as inquiring whether they like cilantro.”

11. “Saddling another person with a book he did not ask for has always seemed to me like a huge psychological imposition, like forcing someone to eat a chicken biryani without so much as inquiring whether they like cilantro.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “A reading life... is an adventure without maps where you meet unexpected soulmates along the way.”

12. “A reading life... is an adventure without maps where you meet unexpected soulmates along the way.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Great writers say things that are so beautiful, the very act of repeating them makes life itself more beautiful.”

13. “Great writers say things that are so beautiful, the very act of repeating them makes life itself more beautiful.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “I like to stack them up on the shelf and move them about and rearrange them according to new parameters-height, color, thickness, provenance, publisher, author’s nationality, subject matter, likelihood that I will ever read them. Then I put them back the way they were.”

14. “I like to stack them up on the shelf and move them about and rearrange them according to new parameters-height, color, thickness, provenance, publisher, author’s nationality, subject matter, likelihood that I will ever read them. Then I put them back the way they were.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Unless paid, I never read books by or about businessmen or politicians, nor should anyone else.”

15. “Unless paid, I never read books by or about businessmen or politicians, nor should anyone else.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Good books don’t make you think, because the author has already done all of the thinking for you, but a terrible book can really give your brain a workout, because you spend so much time wondering what incredibly dumb thing the author will say next.”

16. “Good books don’t make you think, because the author has already done all of the thinking for you, but a terrible book can really give your brain a workout, because you spend so much time wondering what incredibly dumb thing the author will say next.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Books did not need to be beautiful back in the Fifties, because nothing else was beautiful back then. Books were simply there: you read them because they were diverting or illuminating or in some way useful but not because the books themselves were aesthetically appealing.”

17. “Books did not need to be beautiful back in the Fifties, because nothing else was beautiful back then. Books were simply there: you read them because they were diverting or illuminating or in some way useful but not because the books themselves were aesthetically appealing.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Books are a way of saying: This room seems to have more than its fair share of bozos in it.”

18. “Books are a way of saying: This room seems to have more than its fair share of bozos in it.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “I have never squandered an opportunity to read.”

19. “I have never squandered an opportunity to read.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “I dread that awkward moment when a friend hands you the book that changed his or her life, and it is a book that you have despised since you were fourteen.”

20. “I dread that awkward moment when a friend hands you the book that changed his or her life, and it is a book that you have despised since you were fourteen.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Still, it was impossible to deny: Going all the way to London without taking time out to attend a few horrendous plays was like making a special trip to Hell without ever asking to meet Satan. So this time around, I decided to plunge in headfirst. Never a fan of Noel Coward, I nonetheless reported to the Albery Theatre, forked over a king’s ransom for a good seat, and watched Alan Rickman act up a storm in Private Lives.”

21. “Still, it was impossible to deny: Going all the way to London without taking time out to attend a few horrendous plays was like making a special trip to Hell without ever asking to meet Satan. So this time around, I decided to plunge in headfirst. Never a fan of Noel Coward, I nonetheless reported to the Albery Theatre, forked over a king’s ransom for a good seat, and watched Alan Rickman act up a storm in Private Lives.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “It is never a good sign when the most exciting thing on television is a dancing Republican.”

22. “It is never a good sign when the most exciting thing on television is a dancing Republican.”

— Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan Quote: “Library events scare me, as they provide refuge for local historians, fabulists, tellers of tall tales, historical reenactors, and even dream weavers. Not to mention the single most feared creature on the planet: the self-published poet.”

23. “Library events scare me, as they provide refuge for local historians, fabulists, tellers of tall tales, historical reenactors, and even dream weavers. Not to mention the single most feared creature on the planet: the self-published poet.”

— Joe Queenan

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