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How to Find Books by Quotes

If you've heard the perfect literary quote but aren't sure what book spawned the witty gem, finding out doesn't have to be hard. Armed with the powers of persistence and deduction you'll find the book in no time with this handy advice.

Find the author of the quote. Once you have this key piece of information you will be well on your way to finding the book you're looking for.

Write down the quote and analyze it. Like in the childhood game of "telephone" exact words and meanings are sometimes muddled or lost when passed from one person to another. Look for opportunities for synonyms or older usage words in the quote.

Consult the quotation classic. "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" is a great resource. This frequently-revised classic has been around since 1855. You can search by author, if known, or subject to find the origin of the quote.

Search for your quote on quote websites such as Quoteland, The Quote Garden or The Quotations Page. Browse by subject or use the site's search tool to search for specific keywords.

Take advantage of message boards and web communities. Some quote websites like Quoteland have their own message boards where you can find friendly people with answers to your quote-related queries. You can also try visiting a message board that focuses on the particular subject of the quote.

Call a bookstore and speak with a bookseller. Stores like Barnes and Noble have several different search options to help you find the book you need. They may even be familiar with the quote itself. The librarian at your local public library may also be able to help you.

Search inside the book on Amazon. This feature is available for a large number of books sold on Amazon.com. After determining the author of your quote you can try searching inside possible book matches by selecting "search inside this book." If the quote is found the results will pop up and let you know the exact page where the quote appears.

Megan Mattingly-Arthur has been writing professionally since 1998. She has contributed to various publications, including "Teen Voices" and "Positive Teens" magazines, as well as a book, "The Young Writer's Guide to Getting Published." Mattingly-Arthur is studying travel and tourism through Penn Foster Career School.

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How to Find a Book Without Knowing the Title or Author

Can't remember the title of a book? These tips will help you can find any book's title or author with just a vague description of the plot.

Do you want to find a book title when you can only remember the plot? Online search tricks make it easy to find a book using a vague description.

Sometimes you remember a book you read by its jacket. Sometimes by the actions of an obscure character. However, sometimes you can't even remember the author or title. Everyone has book amnesia at times, so expect to see (or ask) a question like this one day:

"What was that book which had something about a puppet master as a murderer?"

In the old days, you could have asked the librarian. Today, you can use these tips online to find a book when you don't know the title or author.

How to Find a Book With a Google Search

When you can't (or even if you can) remember the name of a book, author, or the characters in it, Google or another search engine should help you find a book.

What is true for any generic search is true when trying to find a book without knowing the name and author. Use any details you remember from the book as keywords.

In case of a forgotten title or author, you must remember anything you can use from the book. It could be the name of a character, a line of dialog, or even essential plot points—the more specific the phrase, the better the result.

All rules of a regular search apply (for instance, for exact searches, put it in quotes). Google auto-suggestions will also tell you if you are on the right track.

The search for a long-lost book is an excellent way to master advanced Google Search skills . For example, you can include or exclude specific keywords, search with an exact phrase, or use the wildcard operator to guess the name of a character.

Try Google Books Search

The massive Google Books Library Project was the most extensive book cataloging project of its kind. It scanned millions of books and set off Google Books Search , which works just like Google Search.

The difference is that the reference page displayed in the search results also contains extra information like various covers, tables of content, common terms and phrases, and famous passages from the book. In addition, you can view sample pages and check if this is the book you were searching for. Also, you can search within a book.

The number of search parameters at your disposal can help you find books using vague descriptions.

Use the Advanced Google Search Page filters like subject, publisher, language, publication date, or ISBN and ISSN numbers. However, you're unlikely to remember these last two.

Experiment with keywords and wildcard operators to grab a clue. Even if you do not find the book you're looking for, you might come across a reference that could lead you to the answer.

The Best Online Catalogs to Find Any Book

Some search engines are more specialized for book searches.

1. BookFinder

BookFinder is an advanced search engine (Click on Show more options ) that taps into the inventories of over 100,000 booksellers worldwide. Try a keyword search, or restrict your query by the publication year if you can recall it.

The advanced search fields on BookFinder can help you find books out of print or their first editions. It's also a popular site for finding the cheapest textbooks.

2. WorldCat

WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. You can search the worldwide database of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries. For example, search for a book and locate it at a nearby library. Membership of the library allows you to check out the item online.

Try the Advanced Search with unique filters like Audience and Languages.

Peek into WorldCat Genres (or Fictional Finder), which helps you browse through fiction genres for hundreds of titles, authors, subjects, characters, locations, and more, ranked by popularity in the world's libraries.

3. The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress (LOC) is the world's largest library and hosts a vast digital collection today. An online book search through its catalog of 167 million items---including books, serials, manuscripts, maps, music, recordings, images, and electronic resources---shouldn't take too long.

To top it all, the LOC has a friendly Ask A Librarian form for queries.

Use Amazon Search to Find the Name of a Book

Amazon started life as an online bookstore. Books remain the top category by sales, with millions of titles in stock at any time. If Amazon doesn't sell the book you are looking for, it's probably no longer available, or you have a fuzzier memory than you think.

You can start with the basic search bar and a keyword to name a book. But the actual book finder is Amazon's Advanced Book Search .

Amazon does not have an official list of advanced search operators. But it does display a few search tips on the above page. The API documentation lists a few power searches you can try for your book.

Go through the documentation by clicking on "Next." For instance, experimenting with the [title-begins] keyword could help you name books quickly.

The trick is to cut through the clutter of Amazon search results . Try this neat Amazon advanced search tool called JungleSearch.net which can also help you fetch hidden Amazon search results.

And if all fails, do a site search with Google. You might get lucky. For example:

"Rachel Childs"+journalist site:amazon.com

Use Amazon's Look Inside to Search Inside the Book

Amazon not only matches your keywords to titles and authors but also on every word inside a book. You can discover if this is the exact book you are looking for by clicking the Look Inside link and going through the preview pages. Then, use the Search Inside This Book field to look for sentences, key phrases, and citations.

Ask for Help From Online Book Communities

Any website which helps you discover your next book will have an online community behind it. Tap into the collective memory of book lovers on these recommended book platforms.

1. Goodreads

Goodreads is an Amazon subsidiary. So you can expect the knowledge base to be just as vast. This social network for book nerds has discussion boards on a variety of topics.

You can go to any genre-specific group and ask for help. But it might be worth trying these two first:

• Book Hunting
• What's the Name of That Book

2. Abe Books: BookSleuth

Want to find a romance novel description? Or that thriller you read in your childhood? The appropriately named BookSleuth is another good hunting ground for forgotten titles. Use the community forum organized by genre, and provide as many details as possible for the members to help you out.

3. LibraryThing: Name That Book

LibraryThing is a less hip, more cerebral alternative to Goodreads. Start a new topic for your specific search in this community group and enter all the book details you can remember.

Ask Your Social Networks to Name That Book

By now, you should have got either the book or your memory back. If not, your search has probably reached a frustrating hurdle because the book-loving masses haven't been able to rescue you yet. So it's time to broaden your scope with an SOS on your social network of choice.

1. Facebook

The social network isn't only for finding long-lost friends. You can also call upon the crowd's wisdom to help you find that elusive book. However, your social circle might be too limited, so broaden your search using book clubs.

Mark Zuckerberg started A Year of Books , and it ended at more than 600,000 followers. Smaller public groups like the Andrew Luck Book Club and Friday Reads are going strong. Some book clubs follow a niche genre too.

Start with a Twitter search. Hashtags make micro-blogging work, but the generic #books or #bibliophile hashtag might be too broad. Instead, try to plug the specific genre into a hashtag search (e.g., #DarkFantasy or #UrbanFantasy) to narrow your results and/or when you ask for help.

The Q&A site could be the largest gathering of "experts" outside Facebook and Twitter. The best thing about Quora is that you can expect a quality response. Take the answer in the screenshot, for example.

4. Stack Exchange

A potpourri of 168 Q&A communities makes up Stack Exchange. Stack Overflow might be the most popular with programmers, but there are niche communities for Ebooks and Literature . Then, you can also go into a genre-specific community and drop a question. Sci-Fi and Fantasy is popular.

You couldn't have thought of a better name for a subreddit on books than Tip of My Tongue . Just scan your eyes down the solved answers with the green tag to understand the power of collective memory. Also, try other subreddits like What's That Book , Books , and printSF when you can only remember the cover.

Use Wikipedia

A Google search should be able to unearth the lost book. But if you feel lazy, use Wikipedia as a book finder. The giant online encyclopedia has an ever-growing stockpile of the world's knowledge, so there's a chance it will also have clues on the book you can't remember the title for.

Here are three ideas to search for a book via Wikipedia:

• Wikipedia:Book sources : Tap these collections of links to catalogs of libraries, booksellers, and other book databases.
• Wikipedia Ste Search : Type your keyword and use the Wikipedia search engine or Google's site search operator, i.e. [keyword] site:wikipedia.org .
• Browse Linked Wikipedia Pages: As Wikipedia links pages like hubs and spokes, any similar book page can lead to the information on the book you are searching for.

Help Others Find Forgotten Books Too

The internet relies on the kindness of strangers. The good thing is that book lovers are everywhere and the fraternity is amazingly cooperative even when finding a book using a vague description. So, the next time you ask yourself, "what was that book?" try to recall any tiny detail of the book.

Even a minor detail is a clue—for instance, any physical feature or illustration. Try to bring up some associated memories: What did you do when reading that book? How old were you? Was it a gift, or did you borrow it?

To close, the best tip for every book lover is to make a reading list and keep it organized.

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Can't Confirm That Quotation? Search Google Books

Please try again

Flickr: dstrelau

Dear Savvy Searcher,

“We have hit a stumper. A colleague is looking for confirmation that Maya Angelou said the following (along with where and when):

‘We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.’

We have looked widely and been unable to confirm the attribution. Everyone on the web seems to agree that she said it but no one attributes it with a citation of any sort.

Thanks! I hope y'all can help. We are stymied.”

Joy Millam Teacher Librarian (Reprinted with author permission from the LM_Net Archive , answer posted here )

Google Books can help with this. What’s needed is the information that appears in a citation: the author, place, and date of publication. Luckily, traditional print materials (in the form of books) often include the kind of citation information you might need and Google Books allow you to search the full text of books.

Here's what to do:

• Go to books.google.com
• Search for: Maya Angelou "We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color" . (Generally, I advise against typing in a whole quote. As we will see shortly, I would have done better to use fewer words, as suggested in the recent post on picking good search terms .)
• Notice that many books simply print the quote and credit Angelou, but a few, such as Jay Phelan’s What Is Life?: A Guide to Biology w/Prep-U and Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester’s Intercultural Competence , agree on a source: Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now (New York: Random House Inc., 1993) 124.
• Within Google Books, search for Wouldn't Take Nothing "diversity makes for a rich tapestry."

This is where the search gets tricky. Why did the book itself not come up in the original Google Books results? From experience, I know that famous quotes and other texts tend to change as they spread. As Dan Russell wrote in his SearchReSearch post about misquoting :

"Misquotation and missed attributions happen all the time. ALL the time. Even people you think would get it right--say, JFK, who was a prolific re-quoter of others and had a speech-writing staff to boot--often got the attributions wrong."

When verifying a quote, you should not assume that you have the saying verbatim--you never know what words have been added or subtracted by someone along the way. Once again, the best practice is to pick out the key words that best define what you seek. Google ranks results, in part, by whether your search terms are close to each other, and in the same order, on a page. So, when trying to locate a specific passage, it works best to pick a phrase rather than individual words.

As it turns out, that one little word slowed me down. Had I simply started with Maya Angelou diversity makes for a rich tapestry , I would have found her book directly. But, since I used a quote that had words she didn’t use, and put quotation marks around it to require a precise match, Maya Angelou’s book didn’t appear as a result.

Despite this misstep, end-to-end, it has taken less than two minutes to locate and verify the source of the quote.

The primary tactic I used here is called scoping. Scoping is when you limit the sources you’re searching to a set of a particular kind. Google Books, Google News, Google Images, and Google Scholar are examples of ways to scope within Google. Or, if you want primary sources on Abraham Lincoln, using a search like [ site:loc.gov lincoln ] to limit results to pages from the Library of Congress’ website is another type of scoping.

The power of scoping is one of the reasons Google Books is so efficient. I recommend Google Books in a wide variety of circumstances -- for example:

Accessing historical gems : 

• A student studying the massive eruption of Krakatoa read The Royal Society’s 1888 research report on impact on the weather ;
• Students studying early film viewed the original screenplay for The Jazz Singer ; and
• A teacher who wanted a fun lesson in credibility could assign Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance and ask students to determine whether this was actually a true autobiography (an idea from fellow Googler librarian Kurt Groetsch).

Building understanding of more obscure, academic topics:

• Someone on Google+ asked for “...examples of the medieval motif of dancers trapped/stuck in a dance together." I had no name for this motif by which to look it up, and no idea what the question even meant until I found scholarly sources discussing an example which then, with help from a blog post , led to more examples , also from Google Books.

Previewing books to assure they're a good fit to a student’s reading level before requesting them from another library:

• A student interested in Rube Goldberg’s comic criticisms of the mechanical age was interested in reading Michael North’s Machine-Age Comedy , but found from the preview that the reading level was not a good match for her needs. This kept her from stalling on her homework for several days while waiting for the book to arrive from the library, and encouraged her to check out a different book, instead.

Locating or verifying books, stories, and essays:

• Uncover the original publication date of the print story, “Yes, Sweetie, Trees Can Have Purple Leaves,” by James J. Backen.
• Locate the story "Pat and the Sarpint," which the reader recalls being in a book called Early American Folk Tales.
• Prove that a piece about a Jewish tradition around first menstruation, entitled “The Slap,” has actually been published somewhere.
• Identify a book described by the reader in these words:  “It contained Native Americans as the primary protagonists, included witchcraft, gun-running and I believe a supporting cast of hippies.”

In some of these cases, some fancy searching was involved (stay tuned for more about locating gun-runners, witches, and hippies another day). In most of these cases, however, a very straightforward Google Books search, such as typing the title of the book or story into the basic Google Books search box, uncovered the hoped-for source instantly.

The takeaway: if you want information about something that originally appeared in print, remember to try Google Books.

Have something you read once upon a time and would like to locate again? Give Google Books a try!

Have a question for The Savvy Searcher?  Contact Tasha  and check out the  Search Education Team’s resources . Read more from The Savvy Searcher .

Literature in English

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• Finding Quotes
• Theater Studies
• Film and Video Resources This link opens in a new window
• Medieval & Renaissance Studies
• New and Noteworthy Collection This link opens in a new window
• Women's Studies This link opens in a new window
• Digital Humanities This link opens in a new window
• Primary Sources This link opens in a new window

This guide was created by Rebekah Cowell in summer 2023.

Verifying Quotations

• Use the quotation reference volumes listed below to search by author to verify a quotation. If the volume is digital, search using a word or phrase from the quote because if the quote is incorrect, searching for the entire quote could yield inaccurate results, whereas using words or phrases will get you closer to the actual quotation.
• Run your word or phrase + author through the quote authentication websites below.
• Browse the complete works of a public figure using digital volumes in the catalog instead of searching volume by volume in person.
• You may need to search collections of letters or collections of speeches. Vital Speeches of the Day and Vital Speeches International are two general resources for finding speeches.
• Go to Google Books and search by the person's name + keywords or phrases from the quote. If the quote exists, an excerpt from a scholar will come up. If cited, you can follow the citation from the book to the original document where the words were issued, such as correspondence, diaries, speeches, interviews, etc.
• Bartleby Online Quotations : Over "120,000 most authoritative quotations on the web." 
• Quote Investigator Tracing Quotations : A website by Garson O'Toole devoted to seeking the truth about who said what; "This question often cannot be answered with complete finality, but approximate solutions can be iteratively improved over time."
• Wikiquote : "A free online compendium of sourced quotations from notable people and creative works in every language, translations of non-English quotes, and links to  Wikipedia  for further information."
• The Quotations Page : "Over 28,000 quotations online from over 3,400 authors, and more are added daily."
• Quoteland : For historical speeches and audio, check out the reference page .
• Finding Quotations . Tips from the Library of Congress.
• How to Research a Quotation . Tips from the New York Public Library.

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How to Research a Quotation

'Il ya des rivières ...' (quotation from Balzac?) -- Anne Barwell., Digital ID 480116, New York Public Library

Researching a quotation can be fun, but it's not always easy and many times may require some serious digging.

There are quotes that no matter how hard we try, no author can be determined nor a source found. There are also quotes that have been attributed to so many authors that it is almost impossible to ascertain who actually said it first. Many quotes, especially famous quotes, are often misquoted by speakers, politicians, and the media which sometimes makes it much more difficult to identify an author and or a source. Some quotes are also not quotes at all, but proverbs or idioms.

The first thing to do when trying to identify a quote is to try to remember as much as possible about the wording of the quote. Many quotes are actually misquoted and deviate from the original quote. Therefore, when searching for a quote, try using keywords or try searching for the general idea of a quote especially if you are unsure of wording. Also try searching by the author if you don't have the wording correct but know the author.

This post can serve as a useful starting point for anyone seeking to research a quotation or find the source of a quotation.

E-books and Databases

Oxford reference online.

Contains 2012 editions of the following books online, and is accessible with your library card number. Start with a keyword search for your quotation, then narrow the results under "By Reference Type" to "Quotations."

• Brewer's Famous Quotations
• The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations
• The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations
• Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations
• The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations
• The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
• Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
• Oxford Essential Quotations

Credo Reference

Contains the following books online, and is accessible with your library card number. Start with a keyword search for your quotation, then narrow the results under "Subject" to "quotations."

• Bloomsbury Biographical Dictionary of Quotations (1997)
• Bloomsbury Thematic Dictionary of Quotations (1997)
• Book of Bible Quotations (2005)
• Collins Dictionary of Quotations (2003)
• The Elgar Dictionary of Economic Quotations (2003)
• Rawson's Dictionary of American Quotations (1997)
• Respectfully Quoted (1989)
• Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988)

Quotation E-Books

We have individual quotation books in electronic format, covering many different public personalities and themes such as Abraham Lincoln , weddings , and things you should never do . You can check them out with a library card and read them on any device.

Wikiquote   Wikiquote is a free online compendium of sourced quotations from notable people and creative works in every language, translations of non-English quotes, and links to Wikipedia for further information. Wikiquote is a great starting point for a quotation search. Only quotes with sourced citations can be included. It also includes frequent misquotes and their possible origins.

Wiktionary: Proverbs by Language Browse proverbs in 59 languages.

Wiktionary: English Proverbs English phrases popularly known as representations of common sense.

Bartleby.com Quotations Contains a dozen public domain quotation reference books (pre-1923) including Bartlett's Familiar Quotations .

IMDb Title and Name Text Searches Search movie and television quotes in the Internet Movie Database.

Contemporary Quotations Sponsored by American University's School of Communication, the site honors the work of the late Rev. James B. Simpson, author of Simpson Contemporary Quotations. Search by text, author or category or browse by category.

The Quote Investigator (Garson O’Toole) blogs about popular quotations and his research into their origins.

Cards with literary quotations, depicting gravestones, landscapes, berries, plants and bees.

Digital ID 486298, New York Public Library

Print Resources

The research collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building offer a large collection of quotations books, some of which are on the open shelf in the Rose Main Reading Room.

Benham's Book of Quotations, Proverbs, and Household Words William G. Benham The English-language section of this dictionary of quotations is arranged by author.

Bloomsbury Dictionary of Quotations This work is arranged by author; a keyword index is supplied. Brewer's Famous Quotations Nigel Rees

The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Familiar Phrases Burton E. Stevenson This comprehensive work is arranged by subject with cross references to related headings; a keyword index is provided.

The Home Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern selected and arranged by Burton Stevenson This comprehensive dictionary of quotations is primarily arranged by subject; author and keyword indexes are provided.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations Drawn from the Speech and Literature of All Nations J.K. Hoyt This comprehensive collection, arranged by subject, includes author and keyword indexes.

International Thesaurus of Quotations edited by Eugene H. Ehrlich Primarily arranged by subject, this work is also indexed by author, source, and keyword.

Familiar Quotations John Bartlett A standard, comprehensive collection whose primary arrangement is by author (listed chronologically by birth date).

A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources Henry Louis Mencken This comprehensive collection, notable for its inclusion of many lesser-known quotations, is arranged only by subject (with cross references to related headings). No indexes.

The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation edited by Elizabeth Knowles Arranged primarily by themes or subjects, supplemented by keyword index.

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Arranged by author, this dictionary supplies a keyword index.

The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When edited by Ralph Keyes Arranged primarily in alphabetical order by quote keywords, with a name and keyword index.

Quotology Willis Goth Regier

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Arranged by author, with keyword index.

What They Didn't Say: A Book of Misquotations

The Wisdom of the Novel: A Dictionary of Quotations David Powell Arranged by subject, author, novel, and keyword indexes are provided.

Yale Book of Quotations edited by Fred R. Shapiro Arranged primarily by author, with keyword index.

Have a question about a quotation? Email  [email protected] for assistance.

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Using Google Books to Find Quotes

By Steve Anderson on Nov 20, 2014

Google Books is a free service provided by Google which searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using OCR (optical character recognition), and stored in its digital library. Google Books allows you to search a large number of books for words or phrases.

Using a famous quotation is often a great way to enhance your writing. Google Books is one tool you can use to search for and find quotes that you can use in your writing. It can also be a great tool to find where a key concept or thought appears.

For example, some famous quotes can be very hard to verify. It is often difficult to determine where they originally came from and how they evolved over time. Often, quotes are attributed to people who didn’t say them.

Let’s say you wanted to verify where the famous line “Elementary, my dear Watson,” usually attributed to Sherlock Holmes, actually came from.

The first step would be to go to Google Books and search for “Sherlock Holmes.” An available list of books will be presented in a typical Google search window. Many of these books will include Preview as an option. When Preview is displayed for a book you have access to the full text version of the book.

Google will always try to find the best possible match. Since it could not find an exact match, it gave you second best. You can see that all the words are there, but the exact phrase is not.

When using this specific search function to find information contained within books, you will have to think not only about the specific phrase but also about any related words or phrases that might help you narrow down the exact quotation you’re looking for.

While you will likely not use this type of search often, when you do want to find a particular piece of information within a book, it can be a very helpful tool.

What are some of the other ways you find good quotations to use in your writing? Let me know in the comments section below.

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How to Find a Book From a Vague Description

"It was a thriller...I think?"

One of the most infuriating modern problems is having a question you can’t easily answer with a Google search—like when you’re trying to figure out the name of a book without knowing the author, any part of the title, or the name of a main character.

We’ve all been there, and know how frustrating it is when searches of “book where [insert foggy memory here]” turn up fruitless. Luckily, there are a few things you can try to increase your chances of finding that elusive title. Below, we’ve listed the five steps you can take to find a book from a vague description.

And don’t worry: If you still can’t find the book, you can always turn to our book recommendations for a new story. One day, you may even move on from your great white whale . 

1. Gather the details.

Every detail matters when you’re trying to find a book without a title! Write down everything you can remember, like the genre (Was it a psychological thriller ? A historical romance ?), character names and personality traits, any scenes that stand out in your head, or a memorable quote . 

Even the decade you think the book came out and where and when you originally read the book could help you figure out the name of the book. Something you read in high school , for example, may be on a recommended reading list, and at the very least, you'll be able to immediately remove any newer releases from your search. Any and all of this information could increase your chances of tracking down the book you’re thinking of.

2. Google it.

We know—we just said these things are difficult to Google. But, the more you can remember, the more likely it is that the almighty search engine will turn up the answer you’re looking for. For example, let's say you can’t remember the name of the classic children’s book Ella Enchanted , a play on Cinderella in which a girl is cursed with having to obey every order she is given. If you search for “book girl who is cursed,” you won’t find it on the first page of search results. But throw in the word “obey,” and there you have it: Ella Enchanted is the first result.

You can also enhance your Google skills by smartly using quotes and minus signs. If you’re absolutely sure a certain phrase or name was in the book, put it in quotes—Google will only return results with those words. 

And, if the wrong book is crowding your search results, you can exclude those pages by adding a minus sign in front of a keyword from that result. E.g., “book girl who is cursed -rapunzel” to get rid of results about a certain long-haired shut-in.

3. Google Books it. 

Another trick is to specifically search within Google Books , and try to include words you’re sure would be used in the text of the book. Google will scan every page of every book available for purchase in their database to see if it has the words you entered—and that’s a whole lot of books! 

So, to use our Ella Enchanted example again, instead of typing “book girl who is cursed to obey,” you might try “girl curse obey.” For the record, this works! Ella Enchanted is the second result for those terms on Google Books.

4. Ask Reddit.

If you’re not familiar with Reddit, don’t worry. It’s very simple to use, and there are many subreddits with users who are extremely helpful and love puzzling out the answers to difficult queries. (Plus, while you’re there, you can get lost in the drama of reddit relationship stories .)

For this specific task, you’ll want to make a post in one of two subreddits: r/whatsthatbook , or r/tipofmytongue . The former is full of book lovers who really know their stuff, though it’s not as active as the latter, where users post all the details they can remember from a book, movie, song, video game, etc., and other users help them figure out what they’re thinking of. 

If you do post on a subreddit, make sure to read any rules, guidelines and FAQs so your post isn’t taken down by the moderators. Then, with any luck, the sub will be able to help you find a book from just a vague description!

5. Ask a librarian.

If even after taking the above steps you find that your detective skills are below the level of solving a cozy mystery , your last resort is to go to the professionals, which in this case means a trip to the library. 

At Early Bird Books, we love librarians and all of the fantastic things that can happen at the library . They’re a veritable wealth of knowledge, and librarians tend to love helping you track down information and figure out how to best research almost anything, including the few snippets you recall about a book.

In short, they’re super-star sleuths who are more than willing to help you search their databases to figure out the name of the book you’re looking for. And, worst case scenario, if they can’t help you find that title, they can definitely point you in the direction of some others you’ll be sure to love.

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There are many internet sites for quotations.  However, while it can be quite easy to find a quote, those sites often don't indicate exactly where the quote came from- and they are often wrong. If you find a quote repeated all over the internet attached to a famous person's name without any other information, it's probably misquoted, misattributed, or both.

The first thing a librarian usually does to try to identify a quotation is to put it into Google Books or HathiTrust (see below under Publicly Available Online).

This is how we search the full text of millions of books (and other textual materials) at once. Experiment. If it's a long quote, choose a phrase and put it in quotations. Try it outside quotations. Choose fairly unusual keywords to search. Put in or leave out the name of the person you suspect to have said it. If the person it's attributed to wrote or spoke in another language, consider that translations can vary.

Below are some suggested places to search for complete citations.

Electronic at Harvard

A HarvardKey (available to current Harvard faculty, staff and students only) is needed for these links . Check your local library to see if you have access to any of these (they may recommend others).

Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection   For best results click Advanced Search, limit to Quotation Literature Online (LION)

Publicly available online

Remember to evaluate your source. Some sites just repeat information found in other places rather than confirming it for themselves.

Bartleby.com   Allows you to search all Bartleby quote sources simultaneously, including Bartlett’s and Respectfully Quoted, a dictionary of quotes requested from the Congressional Research Service. Google Books Advanced Book Search – surround the full quote with quotations marks, or specify author and then keywords Other Digital Libraries These are similar to Google Books and you can search across the full text of millions of books. There is a lot of overlapping content, but there are some unique items and each of them searches a little differently so you may get different results. These are 3 of the largest:

• Internet Archive
• Project Gutenberg

Wikiquote is Wikipedia for quotes. As with Wikipedia, pay attention to cited sources.

Quoteinvestigator.com and Garson O'Toole's book, Hemingway Didn't Say That Google Groups   Submit a quote to the collective wisdom of a quotations group to get more leads.

Unfortunately, the material may not exist online, or it may not be possible to find it (because the quote is not exact or has been misattributed for so long).

Quotations Dictionaries and other books in Print

Major print sources can be found in the Loker Reading Room at Widener, starting with call number RR 3021.1 Search HOLLIS or other catalogs for keywords such as women quotations dictionaries or politics quotations dictionaries.  

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Who said that? Librarian tips for verifying quotes.

In a digital world where famous quotations are used in memes and inspirational social media posts, often, like a game of telephone, quotes evolve into something that differs significantly from the original words spoken or written. Verifying the authenticity of quotes can take time and effort. Arianne Hartsell-Gundy , Head of Humanities and Social Sciences and Librarian for Literature, has provided tips and tricks to streamline the search process!

• When using an online authentication website, i.e., The Quotations Page , don’t use the whole quote because you might get inaccurate results if it’s incorrect. Consider using a word or phrase from the quote plus the author’s name.
• Try searching using a quotation reference volume (such as the Oxford Essential Quotations ) available digitally from the library. Digital reference books can be searched using the same method described above: author’s name plus a keyword or phrase from the original quote.

Most of all, don’t get discouraged; sometimes, it is impossible to nail down a precise quotation. Recently, Arianne worked with a scholar trying to verify a quote attributed to Edward O. Wilson: “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.” She hunted for the quote in the general quote collections, science-specific quotation sources, and Google Books , which cited Biophilia ; however, Biophilia did not provide this quotation, leaving the origins of those words as a mystery indicating somewhere along the way words were modified. The scholar went so far as to reach out to Edward O. Wilson, who was unsure of its origins! This example demonstrates the complexities of verifying quotations and that, occasionally, there’s no definitive answer. Still, it is always good to do due diligence before using a quotation in a paper or article. We hope with these tips, it may be possible for you to get at close as possible to the approximation of who said what! For more suggestions, visit Arianne’s Literature in English research guide.

One thought on “Who said that? Librarian tips for verifying quotes.”

a) There are additional quote-searching hints and links from the Library of Congress here: https://guides.loc.gov/quotations/introduction

b) One of the experts cited there, “Quote Investigator,” posted recently to American Dialect Society List a plausible origin for the quote mistakenly ascribed to E. O. Wilson, but in a book co-edited by him:

“I hypothesize that the quotation was derived from a passage in the book “The Biophilia Hypothesis”, a 1993 collection of pieces edited by Stephen R. Kellert and E. O. Wilson. The passage occurred in the introduction which was written by Kellert.

Date: 1993 Copyright Book Title: The Biophilia Hypothesis Editors: Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson Section: Introduction by Stephen R. Kellert Quote Page 20 Database: Google Books Preview

[Begin excerpt] The biophilia hypothesis proclaims a human dependence on nature that extends far beyond the simple issues of material and physical sustenance to encompass as well the human craving for aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual meaning and satisfaction. [End excerpt]

The passage above was compressed and rephrased to yield the statement under examination. The phrase “aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual” was preserved exactly.

Garson”

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REFERENCE FINDER

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Summon - finding a specific article or book chapter: Finding a chapter or an essay from a book

• Finding an article by title and author
• More options for articles
• Finding a chapter or an essay from a book

Important : not all books contain the same version of a particular chapter or essay.  In particular, anthologies of older texts can contain extracts only.

To find a chapter or essay in a book using Summon, it is best to use advanced search.

T o access advanced search directly from the library homepage, follow the link highlighted below:

To access advanced search from the results screen, follow the Options link that appears at the right of the search box:

For chapters and essays in books, it is best to search by both author and chapter/essay title, exactly like this :

The words from the title need to be searched using the All Fields option, as shown above.  Changing All Fields to Title sounds like a good idea, but it's not in this case. However the author's name does need to searched using the Author  rather than All Fields option. You can also use a fuller version of the title with quote marks, if you wish.

When you run this search, you will see the book title, not the chapter/essay title, in the results list:

This should be the book you need, but occasionally Summon gets it wrong.  You can often check by following the Quick Look link, shown in the screenshot above.  Often, but not always, the Quick Look panel will list the book's contents.  If in doubt, you are welcome to contact the library staff before making a special trip to the Institute.

Searching directly in the book catalogue

Summon does not search the contents lists of every book in the SIA library.  So if you do not find the chapter you need, the next thing to do is to search directly in the book catalogue , accessed from the top menu on the library homepage .  

Run a basic search with the keywords from the chapter title (and, optionally, the author's name):

If a book containing the chapter is in the library, and if the book catalogue includes the contents list of that book, one or more results will appear:

Clicking on the book title in the result brings up further details, often including a contents list.

Sometimes the book catalogue includes more information about a book than Summon; and sometimes it is is Summon that has more information. So to search comprehensively, you may need to look in both places.

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How we're improving search results when you use quotes

Aug 04, 2022

[[read-time]] min read

Sometimes people know they absolutely, positively only want webpages that mention a particular word or phrase. For example, maybe you want to find out about phone chargers but only those that support wireless charging. Fortunately, Google Search has a special operator for that: quotation marks. Put quotes around any word or phrase, such as [“wireless phone chargers”], and we’ll only show pages that contain those exact words or phrases.

Now we’re making quoted searches better. The snippets we display for search results (meaning the text you see describing web content) will be formed around where a quoted word or phrase occurs in a web document. That means you can more easily identify where to find them after you click the link and visit the content. On desktop, we’ll also bold the quoted material.

For example, if you did a search such as [“google search”], the snippet will show where that exact phrase appears:

In the past, we didn’t always do this because sometimes the quoted material appears in areas of a document that don’t lend themselves to creating helpful snippets. For example, a word or phrase might appear in the menu item of a page, where you’d navigate to different sections of the site. Creating a snippet around sections like that might not produce an easily readable description.

We’ve heard feedback that people doing quoted searches value seeing where the quoted material occurs on a page, rather than an overall description of the page. Our improvement is designed to help address this.

Things to keep in mind about quoted searches

For those doing quoted searches, here are some more tips, along with caveats on how quoted searching works.

Quoted searches may match content not readily visible on a page. As referenced above, sometimes quoted searches match content contained within a web page that isn’t readily visible, making it seem like the content isn’t on the page when it actually is present.

For example, content in a meta description tag is looked at for matches, even though that content isn’t visible on the web page itself. ALT text that describes images is considered, as is the text within a page’s URL. Material brought in through inline frames (iframes) is also matched. Google may also see content that doesn’t initially load on a page when you go to it, such content rendered through JavaScript that only appears if you click to make it display.

Pro tip: Sometimes people use the standard Find command in a browser to jump to the phrase they want, after arriving on a page. If that doesn’t work, though, you can try using a developer tools option. For instance, in Chrome, you can search from within Developer Tools to match against all rendered text, which would include the text in drop-down menus and other areas of the site.

Pages may have changed since Google last visited them. While Google revisits pages across the web regularly, they can change in between visits. This means quoted material might appear on a page when we saw it, but it no longer exists on the current page. If available, viewing the Google cached copy may show where the quoted content appeared on the version of the page we visited.

Quoted terms may only appear in title links and URLs. Quoted terms won’t appear in web page snippets if they only appear within title links or URLs of a web page. We also do not bold matches that happen in title links and URLs.

Punctuation is sometimes seen as spaces. Our systems see some punctuation as spaces, which impacts quoted searches. For example, a search for [“don’t doesn’t”] tells our systems to find content that contains all these letters in this order:

don t doesn t

As a result, we’ll match content like the ones below, where punctuation like commas or hyphens break up words — because when you remove the punctuation, the letter patterns are the same:

• don’t, doesn’t
• don’t / doesn’t
• don’t - doesn’t

Snippets might not show multiple quoted terms. If a search involves multiple quoted terms, the snippet may not show all of them if they are far apart from each other. Similarly, if quoted material appears several times on a page, a snippet will show what seems to be the most relevant occurrence.

We mainly bold quoted content for web page snippets on desktop.

Our new bolding of quoted content generally only works for web page snippets on desktop. Bolding won’t appear in snippets for recipe or video boxes, and it also won’t appear when using some special modes such as image or news search. However, anything listed in these boxes or special modes will contain the quoted terms. Bolding also doesn’t work for mobile results.

Quoted searches don’t work for local results. Quote restriction does not work for results in our local box where listings usually appear with a map; we’ll be looking more at this area in the future.

To quote or not to quote?

Using quotes can definitely be a great tool for power users. We generally recommend first doing any search in natural language without resorting to operators like quotation marks. Years ago, many people used operators because search engines sometimes needed additional guidance. Things have advanced since then, so operators are often no longer necessary.

By default, our systems are designed to look for both the exact words and phrases entered and related terms and concepts, which is often useful. If you use a quoted search, you might miss helpful content that uses closely related words.

Of course, there are those times when the exact word being on a page makes all the difference. For those situations, quoted searches remain available and are now even better.

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92 Quotes about Books & 5 Tips on How to Use Them

Let’s venture into the peaceful world of literature, focusing on quotes about books and the magic they can bring to our lives. Books have the power to inspire enlightening discussions and hold up a mirror to our society. Find here the most beautiful quotes about books.

Table of Contents

The value of book quotes, however, often goes unnoticed. Eager to discover more? We’ll be sharing some practical tips on how to use these quotes to enhance your reading experience.

Best Quotes about Books and Reading

Books have always held a significant role in human life, acting as reflections of our diverse experiences and gateways to new, undiscovered worlds.

Reading is a rewarding process, stirring curiosity, encouraging understanding, and expanding our perspectives. The knowledge contained in book quotes, though small, provides deep insights that are often overlooked.

These quotes can be valuable resources for enhancing our reading experience, sparking engaging discussions, and allowing us to express ourselves. Let’s explore the world of book quotes below and how they can contribute to our literary journey.

Find here more beautiful quotes about life.

Quotes about Banned Books

Books are beacons of wisdom, knowledge, and creativity. They shape societies and mold individuals. However, some books are banned, causing a stir in the literary world.

These quotes shed light on our perception of banned books, encouraging an open dialogue about censorship. Use these quotes to inspire your thinking or to share with someone who appreciates the power of literature.

• Books banned today become classics tomorrow. 🙂👍
• Even a banned book has a story to tell. 📘🔕
• Censorship only adds to a book’s intrigue. 🚫🔍
• Banned books are often the most influential. 🚷💡
• A banned book is a hidden treasure. 📚💎
• Every banned book is a silent revolution. 👊🤫
• Banned books give voice to the voiceless. 🗣️🔇
• Reading a banned book is an act of rebellion. 📖✊
• Banned books are the forbidden fruits of literature. 🍎🚫
• Behind every banned book is an uncomfortable truth. 📕😬
• Banning a book is like barring a thought. 🧠🚧
• Banned books hold the power to change perspectives. 🔄👓
• Censorship cannot silence the voice of a book. 📣🔕
• Banned books open doors to hidden realities. 🚪🔑
• Banned books reflect society’s flaws and fears. 😰❄
• Censorship is the enemy of truth, and banned books its victims. 🎯👎
• Every banned book is a spark of revolution. 💥🔥
• Banned books challenge the status quo. ❓🆚
• Fear of a book signifies its power. 📚💪

Explore the uncharted territories of the literary world with an open mind. Let these quotes inspire you and the people you share them with. After all, a banned book is not a closed chapter, but an invitation to a deeper conversation.

Find here quotes from famous people.

Quotes for Book Lovers

Books are more than just ink on paper; they are portals to other worlds, teachers of empathy, and sparks of inspiration ( inspirational quotes ).

Here are some quotes we’ve crafted for the ardent book lover. Share them with fellow readers to spread the love for literature.

• Books are silent friends, waiting to share their stories. 📚😊
• Every page turned is a step into the unknown. 🌌👣
• Reading is the journey of those who crave adventures yet cherish comfort. 🌍💺
• A good book is a lighthouse in the fog of ignorance. 💡🌫️
• Books are mirrors that let us explore the depths of our souls. 🌌🌟
• Through books, we converse with authors long gone, yet immortal. 🗣️👻
• The pleasure of a new book is the joy of a new friend. 👫📕
• Books are the whispers of history, speaking to us across time. ⏳🗣️
• Reading is the key that unlocks the door to countless realities. 🔑🚪
• Books are life’s cheat codes to understanding the world. 🌍🎮
• The scent of a book is the fragrance of a new adventure. 📖👃
• A day spent reading is a day spent in delight. 📚🌞
• A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. 📚💫
• Books are the compass that guides us through the labyrinth of life. 🧭📚
• The magic of reading is that it lets you travel without moving your feet. 🧙‍♂️📖
• Turn a page, change your universe. 🌌📖
• Books are the echoes of diverse minds, resonating in harmony. 📚💭

These quotes are reminders of the joy, wonder, and enlightenment that books provide. May they inspire you and those you share them with to cherish every moment spent with a book in hand.

Quotes from Books about Life

There’s a certain magic that can be found within the pages of a good book. They have the power to transport us, enlighten us, and give us a new perspective on life.

Here, we pay homage to some of the greatest authors of the past, who, through their words, have left us with timeless wisdom about the human experience. Their quotes serve as reminders of life’s complexities, joys, and struggles.

• It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. 😊😉 (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1775-1817)
• We are all fools in love. 😍💖 (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1775-1817)
• It is never too late to be what you might have been. 🤔💫 (George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1819-1880)
• All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. 😴💭 (Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within a Dream, 1809-1849)
• I am no bird; and no net ensnares me. 🐦🔓 (Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1816-1855)
• Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. 😀✌️ (Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1816-1855)
• I would always rather be happy than dignified. 😂🎩 (Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1816-1855)
• We need never be ashamed of our tears. 😢💔 (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1812-1870)
• Life is made of ever so many partings welded together. 👋🔗 (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1812-1870)
• Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. ❤️🕊️ (Charles Dickens, Hard Times, 1812-1870)
• Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. 💑💞 (Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, 1818-1848)
• It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. 🕰️🔄 (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1832-1898)

These quotes speak of love , hope , dreams, and life’s many challenges. Remember, our lives are shaped not just by our experiences, but also by the books we read and the wisdom they impart.

Short Quotes about Books

Books are our constant companions, our teachers, and our solace in times of solitude. As a tribute to these silent yet eloquent friends, here are some short sayings about books.

Share them with fellow book lovers, or use them to spark a newfound interest in someone you know.

• A book is a dream held in your hands. 😊📚
• Turning pages is like turning corners in life. 😌🍃
• Books are the whispers of the past echoing to our hearts. 😇💖
• In every book, a mind speaks; in every reader, a universe listens. 🧠🌌
• Books are the mirrors to countless souls. 📚🔮
• Every book is a journey waiting to be taken. 🗺️🚶‍♀️
• Books are the architects of imagination. 🛠️🌈
• Books make silence sound beautiful. 📚🔇
• When you open a book, you open a new world. 📖🌍
• Books – the most patient teachers. 📚👩‍🏫
• Reading a book is like breathing in a different kind of air. 📚💨
• Books are lighthouses erected in the sea of time. 📚🌊
• Every book is a seed that grows the tree of knowledge. 📚🌳

Each of these sayings is a testament to the power and beauty of books. So next time when you hold a book, remember these sayings and share them with your fellow bookworms.

Funny Quotes about Books

Books provide a source of wisdom and wit as they guide us through the labyrinth of life. The following list of humorous quotes captures the lighter side of our love for books.

Enjoy these funny sayings , share them with fellow bibliophiles, and let’s celebrate the joy that reading can bring.

• Books, like calories, should be consumed in excess. 🍔📚
• Reading is my favorite indoor sport. 🏠🏸
• Books: the original wireless communication. 📚📡
• Books are like potato chips, you can’t have just one. 🥔📚
• When in doubt, go to the library. It’s better than Google. 📚🔍
• Books: turning people into introverts since 1454. 👥📚
• Books, because reality is overrated. 🌈📚
• Books are the best time machines. 📚⏳
• Reading: the original virtual reality. 📚🕶️
• Books: the only thing you can buy that makes you richer. 💸📚
• Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you can’t expect a genius to look out. 🤡👓
• I like big books and I cannot lie. 📚🍑
• I read, therefore I am. 📚💡
• Books are like friends: they’re always there when you need them. 👫📚
• Books are the only form of legal addiction. 📚💊
• Books: helping introverts avoid conversation since time immemorial. 📚🗣️
• Some people have a love story. I have a library. 📚❤️

In this fast-paced digital age, let’s not forget the charm and wit that books offer us. Each of these quotes is a testament to the joy and humor we find in our beloved books.

Famous Book Quotes

Books offer us a wealth of wisdom, shared through the ages by brilliant minds. They not only entertain us but also teach us about the world and ourselves. They can make us laugh, think, and even shed a tear.

Here, we share some famous quotes that highlight the pleasures, loyalty, and experiences that books offer. Share them with your loved ones and spread the joy.

• "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun." 😁🙂 (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1775-1817)
• "It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live." 😇😌 (Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, 1802-1885)
• "I have great faith in fools – self-confidence my friends will call it." 😋😏 (Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia, 1809-1849)
• "Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful." 😈👿 (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1797-1851)
• "I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul." 💭💡 (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1812-1870)
• "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." 📚📖 (Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, 1775-1817)
• "All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education." 🤝🙌 (Walter Scott, The Antiquary, 1771-1832)
• "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship." ⛵🌊 (Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, 1832-1888)
• The best way to have a friend is to be one. 😊 😇 (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, 1803-1882)
• There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. 🤔😄 (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1564-1616)
• The course of true love never did run smooth. 😍😅 (William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1564-1616)
• Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. 😇😊 (William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, 1564-1616)
• All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. 🎭😄 (William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1564-1616)
• Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. 🎉😎 (William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 1564-1616)

We hope that these quotes have brought a smile to your face and brightened your day. May they inspire you to pick up a book and embark on a new journey of discovery and joy. 

Tips on How to Use Quotes About Books

As lovers of literature, we often come across lines that touch our souls and stay with us long after we’ve turned the last page.

The quotes above are gems that shine in the rough, ready to be shared and appreciated. But how best to use these literary treasures? Here are some friendly tips for you:

• Attribution is Key: If you’re using a quote directly from a book, always provide the name of the author and the title of the book. This not only pays tribute to the original writer but also helps interested readers find the book.
• Context Matters: Whenever possible, provide a brief context to the quote. This will help the reader understand the significance of the quote and its relevance to the book’s story or message. Context enriches the quote and makes it more meaningful. 
• Share Wisely: Quotes can be powerful conversation starters. Share them wisely on social media, in book clubs, or in personal conversations. Always remember, the best quotes are those that inspire, provoke thought, or elicit emotion. 
• Personalize Your Sharing: When sharing quotes, add a personal touch. Explain why you chose the quote, what it means to you, or how it’s affected you. This makes the sharing more personal and engaging.
• Use Quotes for Learning: Quotes can be great tools for learning. They can be used to improve vocabulary, understand literary devices, and appreciate the beauty of language. Plus, they can be great memory aids when revising a book.

Using quotes about books can enhance our appreciation of literature and deepen our connection with the books we adore. Each quote is a window into the soul of the book. So, let’s open as many windows as we can and let the light of literature enrich our lives.

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Like My Book Title? Thanks, I Borrowed It.

Literary allusions are everywhere. What are they good for?

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By A.O. Scott

You see it everywhere, even if you don’t always recognize it: the literary allusion. Quick! Which two big novels of the past two years borrowed their titles from “Macbeth”? Nailing the answer — “ Birnam Wood ” and “ Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ” — might make you feel a little smug.

Perhaps the frisson of cleverness ( I know where that’s from!), or the flip-side cringe of ignorance ( I should know where that’s from! ), is enough to spur you to buy a book, the way a search-optimized headline compels you to click a link. After all, titles are especially fertile ground for allusion-mongering. The name of a book becomes more memorable when it echoes something you might have heard — or think you should have heard — before.

This kind of appropriation seems to be a relatively modern phenomenon. Before the turn of the 20th century, titles were more descriptive than allusive. The books themselves may have been stuffed with learning, but the words on the covers were largely content to give the prospective reader the who (“Pamela,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Frankenstein”), where (“Wuthering Heights,” “The Mill on the Floss,” “Treasure Island”) or what (“The Scarlet Letter,” “War and Peace,” “The Way We Live Now”) of the book.

Somehow, by the middle of the 20th century, literature had become an echo chamber. Look homeward, angel! Ask not for whom the sound and the fury slouches toward Bethlehem in dubious battle. When Marcel Proust was first translated into English, he was made to quote Shakespeare, and “In Search of Lost Time” (the literal, plainly descriptive French title) became “Remembrance of Things Past,” a line from Sonnet 30 .

Recent Proust translators have erased the Shakespearean reference in fidelity to the original, but the habit of dressing up new books in secondhand clothing persists, in fiction and nonfiction alike. Last year, in addition to “Birnam Wood,” there were Jonathan Rosen’s “ The Best Minds ,” with its whisper of Allen Ginsberg’s “ Howl ,” Paul Harding’s “ This Other Eden ” (“ Richard II ”), and William Egginton’s “ The Rigor of Angels ” (Borges). The best-seller lists and publishers’ catalogs contain multitudes ( Walt Whitman ). Here comes everybody! (James Joyce).

If you must write prose and poems, the words you use should be your own. I didn’t say that: Morrissey did, in a deepish Smiths cut (“ Cemetry Gates , ” from 1986), which misquotes Shakespeare and name-checks John Keats, William Butler Yeats and Oscar Wilde — possibly the most reliably recycled writers (along with John Milton and the authors of the King James Bible) in the English language.

Not that any of them would have minded. When Keats wrote that “ a thing of beauty is a joy forever ,” he surely hoped that at least that much of “ Endymion ” would outlive him. It’s a beautiful sentiment! And he may have been right. Does anyone read his four-part, 4,000-line elegy for Thomas Chatterton outside a college English class, or even for that matter inside one? Nonetheless, that opening line may ring a bell if you remember it from the movies “ Mary Poppins ,” “Yellow Submarine” or “ White Men Can’t Jump .”

Wilde’s witticism and bons mots have survived even as some of his longer works have languished. If it’s true (as he said) that only superficial people do not judge by appearances, maybe it follows that shallow gleaning is the deepest kind of reading. Or maybe, to paraphrase Yeats, devoted readers of poetry lack all conviction , while reckless quoters are full of passionate intensity .

Like everything else, this is the fault of the internet, which has cannibalized our reading time while offering facile, often spurious, pseudo-erudition to anyone with the wit to conduct a search. As Mark Twain once said to Winston Churchill, if you Google, you don’t have to remember anything.

Seriously though: I come not to bury the practice of allusion, but to praise it. (“ Julius Caesar ”) And also to ask, in all earnestness and with due credit to Edwin Starr , “ Seinfeld” and Leo Tolstoy : What is it good for?

The language centers of our brains are dynamos of originality. A competent speaker of any language is capable of generating intelligible, coherent sentences that nobody has uttered before. That central insight of modern linguistics, advanced by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s and ’60s, is wonderfully democratic. Every one of us is a poet in our daily speech, an inglorious Milton ( Thomas Gray ), a Shakespeare minting new coins of eloquence.

Of course, actual poets are congenital thieves (as T.S. Eliot or someone like him may have said), plucking words and phrases from the pages of their peers and precursors. The rest of us are poets in that sense, too. If our brains are foundries, they are also warehouses, crammed full of clichés, advertising slogans, movie catchphrases, song lyrics, garbled proverbs and jokes we heard on the playground at recess in third grade. Also great works of literature.

There are those who sift through this profusion with the fanatical care of mushroom hunters, collecting only the most palatable and succulent specimens. Others crash through the thickets, words latching onto us like burrs on a sweater. If we tried to remove them, the whole garment — our consciousness, in this unruly metaphor — might come unraveled.

That may also be true collectively. If we were somehow able to purge our language of its hand-me-down elements, we might lose language itself. What happens if nobody reads anymore, or if everyone reads different things? Does the practice of literary quotation depend on a stable set of common references? Or does it function as a kind of substitute for a shared body of knowledge that may never have existed at all?

The old literary canon — that dead white men’s club of star-bellied sneetches ( Dr. Seuss ) — may have lost some of its luster in recent decades, but it has shown impressive staying power as a cornucopia of quotes. Not the only one, by any means (or memes). Television, popular music, advertising and social media all provide abundant fodder, and the way we read now (or don’t) has a way of rendering it all equivalent. The soul selects her own society ( Emily Dickinson ).

When I was young, my parents had a fat anthology of mid-20th-century New Yorker cartoons , a book I pored over with obsessive zeal. One drawing that baffled me enough to stick in my head featured a caption with the following words: “It’s quips and cranks and wanton wiles, nods and becks and wreathed smiles.” What on earth was that? It wasn’t until I was in graduate school, cramming for an oral exam in Renaissance literature, that I found the answer in “ L’Allegro, ” an early poem by Milton, more often quoted as the author of “Paradise Lost.”

Not that having the citation necessarily helps. The cartoon, by George Booth, depicts a woman in her living room, addressing members of a multigenerational, multispecies household. There are cats, codgers, a child with a yo-yo, a bird in a cage and a dog chained to the sofa. Through the front window, the family patriarch can be seen coming up the walk, a fedora on his head and a briefcase in his right hand. His arrival — “Here comes Poppa” — is the occasion for the woman’s Miltonic pep talk.

Who is she? Why is she quoting “L’Allegro”? Part of the charm, I now suspect, lies in the absurdity of those questions. But I also find myself wondering: Were New Yorker readers in the early 1970s, when the cartoon was first published, expected to get the allusion right off the bat? They couldn’t Google it. Or would they have laughed at the incongruous eruption of an old piece of poetry they couldn’t quite place?

Maybe what’s funny is that most people wouldn’t know what that lady was talking about. And maybe the same comic conceit animates an earlier James Thurber drawing reprinted in the same book. In this one, a wild-eyed woman bursts into a room, wearing a floppy hat and wielding a basket of meadow flowers. “I come from haunts of coot and hern!” she exclaims to the baffled company, disturbing their cocktail party.

That’s it. That’s the gag.

Were readers also baffled? It turns out that Thurber’s would-be nature goddess is quoting “ The Brook ,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (I’ve never read it either.) Is it necessary to get the reference to get the joke? If you chuckle in recognition, and complete the stanza without missing a beat — “I make a sudden sally/And sparkle out among the fern,/To bicker down a valley” — is the joke on you?

It’s possible, from the standpoint of the present, to assimilate these old pictures to the familiar story about the decline of a civilization based in part on common cultural knowledge. Sure. Whatever. Things fall apart ( Yeats ). In the cartoons’ own terms, though, spouting snippets of poetry is an unmistakable sign of eccentricity — the pastime of kooky women and the male illustrators who commit them to paper. This is less a civilization than a sodality of weirdos, a visionary company ( Hart Crane ) of misfits. But don’t quote me on that.

A.O. Scott is a critic at large for The Times’s Book Review, writing about literature and ideas. He joined The Times in 2000 and was a film critic until early 2023. More about A.O. Scott

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Cash-strapped Trump is now selling $60 Bibles, U.S. Constitution included

Rachel Treisman

Then-President Donald Trump holds up a Bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., during a controversial 2020 photo-op. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Then-President Donald Trump holds up a Bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., during a controversial 2020 photo-op.

Former President Donald Trump is bringing together church and state in a gilded package for his latest venture, a $60 "God Bless The USA" Bible complete with copies of the nation's founding documents.

Trump announced the launch of the leather-bound, large-print, King James Bible in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday — a day after the social media company surged in its trading debut and two days after a New York appeals court extended his bond deadline to comply with a ruling in a civil fraud case and slashed the bond amount by 61%.

"Happy Holy Week! Let's Make America Pray Again," Trump wrote. "As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible."

Consider This from NPR

Why trump's persecution narrative resonates with christian supporters.

The Bible is inspired by "God Bless the USA," the patriotic Lee Greenwood anthem that has been a fixture at many a Trump rally (and has a long political history dating back to Ronald Reagan). It is the only Bible endorsed by Trump as well as Greenwood, according to its promotional website .

The Bible is only available online and sells for $59.99 (considerably more expensive than the traditional Bibles sold at major retailers, or those available for free at many churches and hotels). It includes Greenwood's handwritten chorus of its titular song as well as copies of historical documents including the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Pledge of Allegiance.

"Many of you have never read them and don't know the liberties and rights you have as Americans, and how you are being threatened to lose those rights," Trump said in a three-minute video advertisement.

"Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country, and I truly believe that we need to bring them back and we have to bring them back fast."

'You gotta be tough': White evangelicals remain enthusiastic about Donald Trump

Trump critics on both sides of the aisle quickly criticized the product, characterizing it as self-serving and hypocritical.

Conservative political commentator Charlie Sykes slammed him for "commodifying the Bible during Holy Week," while Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota critiqued him for "literally taking a holy book and selling it, and putting it out there in order to make money for his campaign."

Trump says the money isn't going to his campaign, but more on that below.

Klobuchar added that Trump's public attacks on others are "not consistent with the teachings of the Bible," calling this "one more moment of hypocrisy." Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser for anti-Trump Republican PAC the Lincoln Project, called it "blasphemous ."

And former Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, trolled Trump with a social media post alluding to his alleged extramarital affairs.

"Happy Holy Week, Donald," she wrote. "Instead of selling Bibles, you should probably buy one. And read it, including Exodus 20:14 ."

Christianity is an increasingly prominent part of his campaign

Trump has made a point of cultivating Christian supporters since his 2016 presidential campaign and remains popular with white evangelicals despite his multiple divorces, insults toward marginalized groups and allegations of extramarital affairs and sexual assault.

And his narrative of being persecuted — including in the courts — appears to resonate with his many Christian supporters.

Trump has increasingly embraced Christian nationalist ideas in public. He promised a convention of religious broadcasters last month that he would use a second term to defend Christian values from the "radical left," swearing that "no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration."

He made similar comments in the Bible promotional video, in which he warned that "Christians are under siege" and the country is "going haywire" because it lost religion.

What to know about the debut of Trump's $399 golden, high-top sneakers

"We must defend God in the public square and not allow the media or the left-wing groups to silence, censor or discriminate against us," he said. "We have to bring Christianity back into our lives and back into what will be again a great nation."

Trump himself is not known to be particularly religious or a regular churchgoer. He long identified as Presbyterian but announced in 2020 that he identified as nondenominational .

A Pew Research Center survey released earlier this month found that most people with positive views of Trump don't see him as especially religious, but think he stands up for people with religious beliefs like their own.

Trump said in the promotional video that he has many Bibles at home.

"It's my favorite book," he said, echoing a comment he's made in previous years. "It's a lot of people's favorite book."

The Impact Of Christian Nationalism On American Democracy

Trump's relationship to the Bible has been a point of discussion and sometimes controversy over the years.

In 2020, amid protests over George Floyd's murder, he posed with a Bible outside a Washington, D.C., church, for which he was widely criticized. U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops had tear-gassed peaceful protesters in the area beforehand, seemingly to make way for the photo-op, though a watchdog report the following year determined otherwise .

That same year, a clip of a 2015 Bloomberg interview, in which Trump declines to name his favorite — or any — Bible verse resurfaced on social media and went viral.

Bible sales are unlikely to solve Trump's financial problems

An FAQ section on the Bible website says no profits will go to Trump's reelection campaign.

"GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign," it says.

However, the site adds that it uses Trump's name, likeness and image "under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC."

Trump is listed as the manager, president, secretary and treasurer of CIC Ventures LLC in a financial disclosure from last year.

Here's what happens if Trump can't pay his $454 million bond

Trump's sales pitch focuses on bringing religion back to America.

"I want to have a lot of people have it," he said at one point in the video. "You have to have it for your heart and for your soul."

But many are wondering whether Trump has something else to gain from Bible sales while facing under mounting financial pressure.

There's his presidential reelection campaign, which has raised only about half of what Biden's has so far this cycle. Trump acknowledged Monday that he "might" spend his own money on his campaign, something he hasn't done since 2016.

There's also his mounting legal expenses, as he faces four criminal indictments and numerous civil cases. Trump posted bond to support a $83.3 million jury award granted to writer E. Jean Carroll in a defamation case earlier this month, and was due to put up another $454 million in a civil fraud case this past Monday.

Trump is on the verge of a windfall of billions of dollars. Here are 3 things to know

His lawyers had said last week that they had approached 30 companies for help making bond, but doing so was a "practical impossibility" — prompting New York's attorney general to confirm that if Trump did not pay, she would move to seize his assets . On Monday, the appeals court reduced the bond amount to $175 million and gave Trump another 10 days to post it.

Trump has evidently been trying to raise money in other ways.

The day after the civil fraud judgment was announced, he debuted a line of $399 golden, high-top sneakers , which sold out in hours . The company behind his social media app, Truth Social, started trading on the Nasdaq exchange on Tuesday, which could deliver him a windfall of more than $3 billion — though he can't sell his shares for another six months.

• Donald J. Trump
• sales pitch
• Christianity

Trump promotes Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless The USA Bible': What to know about the book and its long journey

• Former president Donald Trump encourages supporters to buy Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA Bible," a project inspired by Nashville country musician's hit song.
• Resurgent version of Greenwood's Bible project a modified version from original concept, a change that likely followed 2021 shake-up in publishers.

After years with few updates about Lee Greenwood’s controversial Bible, the project is again resurgent with a recent promotion by former President Donald Trump.

“All Americans need to have a Bible in their home and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in a video posted to social media Tuesday, encouraging supporters to purchase the “God Bless The USA Bible.” “Religion is so important and so missing, but it’s going to come back.”

Greenwood — the Nashville area country musician whose hit song “God Bless the USA” inspired the Bible with a similar namesake — has long been allies with Trump and other prominent Republicans, many of whom are featured in promotional material for the “God Bless The USA Bible.” But that reputational clout in conservative circles hasn’t necessarily translated to business success in the past, largely due to a major change in the book’s publishing plan.

Here's what to know about the Bible project’s journey so far and why it’s significant it’s back in the conservative limelight.

An unordinary Bible, a fiery debate

The “God Bless The USA Bible” received heightened attention since the outset due to its overt political features.

The text includes the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance, and the lyrics to the chorus to Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA.” Critics saw it as a symbol of Christian nationalism, a right-wing movement that believes the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.

A petition emerged in 2021 calling Greenwood’s Bible “a toxic mix that will exacerbate the challenges to American evangelicalism.” From there, a broader conversation ensued about the standards by which publishers print Bibles.

Gatekeeping in Bible publishing

Greenwood’s early business partner on the project, a Hermitage-based marketing firm called Elite Source Pro, initially reached a manufacturing agreement with the Nashville-based HarperCollins Christian Publishing to print the “God Bless The USA Bible.”  

As part of that agreement, HarperCollins would publish the book but not sell or endorse it. But then HarperCollins reversed course , a major setback for Greenwood’s Bible.

The reversal by HarperCollins followed a decision by Zondervan — a publishing group under HarperCollins Christian Publishing and an official North American licensor for Bibles printed in the New International Version translation — to pass on the project. HarperCollins said the decision was unrelated to the petition or other public denunciations against Greenwood’s Bible.

The full backstory: Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless the USA Bible' finds new printer after HarperCollins Christian passes

A new translation and mystery publisher

The resurgent “God Bless The USA Bible” featured in Trump’s recent ad is an altered version of the original concept, a modification that likely followed the publishing shake-up.

Greenwood’s Bible is now printed in the King James Version, a different translation from the original pitch to HarperCollins.

Perhaps the biggest mystery is the new publisher. That manufacturer is producing a limited quantity of copies, leading to a delayed four-to-six weeks for a copy to ship.  

It’s also unclear which business partners are still involved in the project. Hugh Kirkman, who led Elite Service Pro, the firm that originally partnered with Greenwood for the project, responded to a request for comment by referring media inquiries to Greenwood’s publicist.

The publicist said Elite Source Pro is not a partner on the project and the Bible has always been printed in the King James Version.

"Several years ago, the Bible was going to be printed with the NIV translation, but something happened with the then licensor and the then potential publisher. As a result, this God Bless The USA Bible has always been printed with the King James Version translation," publicist Jeremy Westby said in a statement.

Westby did not have the name of the new licensee who is manufacturing the Bible.

Trump’s plug for the “God Bless The USA Bible” recycled language the former president is using to appeal to a conservative Christian base.

“Our founding fathers did a tremendous thing when they built America on Judeo-Christian values,” Trump said in his video on social media. “Now that foundation is under attack perhaps as never before.”

'Bring back our religion’: Trump vows to support Christians during Nashville speech

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] or on social media @liamsadams.

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Trump is selling ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles for $59.99 as he faces mounting legal bills

Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, released a video on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday urging supporters to buy the “God Bless the USA Bible,” inspired by country singer Lee Greenwood’s patriotic ballad.

FILE - President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he visits outside St. John’s Church across Lafayette Park from the White House, June 1, 2020, in Washington. Trump is now selling Bibles as he runs to return to the White House. The presumptive Republican nominee released a video on his Truth Social platform Tuesday urging his supporters to purchase the “God Bless The USA Bible.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is now selling Bibles as he runs to return to the White House.

Trump, who became the presumptive Republican nominee earlier this month, released a video on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday urging his supporters to buy the “God Bless the USA Bible,” which is inspired by country singer Lee Greenwood’s patriotic ballad. Trump takes the stage to the song at each of his rallies and has appeared with Greenwood at events.

“Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible,” Trump wrote, directing his supporters to a website selling the book for $59.99.

The effort comes as Trump has faced a serious money crunch amid mounting legal bills while he fights four criminal indictments along with a series of civil charges. Trump was given a reprieve Monday when a New York appeals court agreed to hold off on collecting the more than $454 million he owes following a civil fraud judgment if he puts up $175 million within 10 days. Trump has already posted a $92 million bond in connection with defamation cases brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll , who accused Trump of sexual assault.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in the video posted on Truth Social. “I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again.”

Billing itself as “the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” the new venture’s website calls it “Easy-to-read” with “large print” and a “slim design” that “invites you to explore God’s Word anywhere, any time.”

Besides a King James Version translation, it includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as a handwritten chorus of the famous Greenwood song.

The Bible is just the latest commercial venture that Trump has pursued while campaigning.

Last month, he debuted a new line of Trump-branded sneakers , including $399 gold “Never Surrender High-Tops,” at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia. The venture behind the shoes, 45Footwear, also sells other Trump-branded footwear, cologne and perfume.

Trump has also dabbled in NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, and last year reported earning between $100,000 and $1 million from a series of digital trading cards that portrayed him in cartoon-like images, including as an astronaut, a cowboy and a superhero.

Donald Trump is facing four criminal indictments, and a civil lawsuit. You can track all of the cases here .

He has also released books featuring photos of his time in office and letters written to him through the years.

The Bible’s website states the product “is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign.”

“GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates,” it says.

Instead, it says, “GodBlessTheUSABible.com uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.”

CIC Ventures LLC, a company that Trump reported owning in his 2023 financial disclosure, has a similar arrangement with 45Footwear, which also says it uses Trump’s “name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.”

A Trump spokesperson and God Bless the USA Bible did not immediately respond to questions about how much Trump was paid for the licensing deal or stands to make from each book sale.

Trump remains deeply popular with white evangelical Christians , who are among his most ardent supporters, even though the thrice-married former reality TV star has a long history of behavior that often seemed at odds with teachings espoused by Christ in the Gospels.

When he was running in 2016, Trump raised eyebrows when he cited “Two Corinthians” at Liberty University, instead of the standard “Second Corinthians.”

When asked to share his favorite Bible verse in an interview with Bloomberg Politics in 2015, he demurred.

“I wouldn’t want to get into it. Because to me, that’s very personal,” he said. “The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.”

When he was president, law enforcement officers aggressively removed racial justice protesters from a park near the White House, allowing Trump to walk to nearby St. John’s Church, where he stood alone and raised a Bible. The scene was condemned at the time by the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

Before he ran for office, Trump famously hawked everything from frozen steaks to vodka to a venture named Trump University, which was later sued for fraud .

What to Know About Donald Trump’s New $60 Bible

“all americans need a bible in their home, and i have many. it’s my favorite book.”.

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Mother Jones illustration; Shealah Craighead/White House/ZUMA

One month after releasing a line of gilded high-tops for $399, Donald Trump revealed on Tuesday a new item: the Bible. “All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many,” the former president explained in a video promoting the country singer Lee Greenwood’s version of a King James translation, the “God Bless the USA Bible.”

“It’s my favorite book,” Trump added.

Throughout the rest of the clip, as if daring us into a collective disgust, Trump swerved through random opportunities to rail against bureaucrats and a country under threat—all while hawking a holy text.

But his latest sales pitch also prompted some legitimate questions. Such as: What the hell is going on? And: Excuse me? Here, we try to answer some of the queries.

So, that first question—what the hell—but more formally: What exactly is Trump promoting and how much will it cost me to shell out for this? 

Trump is encouraging his supporters to buy a Bible endorsed by himself and Lee Greenwood. It costs $59.99, without taxes or shipping included. That seems to sit on the more expensive end of Bibles on sale at Barnes & Noble . But those books presumably don’t include copies of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the handwritten lyrics to the chorus of Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”

The “God Bless the USA Bible” does include these items .

Trump is in a serious cash crunch . So is he going to make money with this Bible?

According to the book’s official site , the God Bless the USA Bible has nothing to do with Trump’s campaign. It is “not owned, managed, or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC, or any of their respective principals or affiliates.” Instead, Trump’s “name, likeness, and image” are being used “under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC.”

Wait, what is CIC Ventures LLC, though?

Okay, so CIC Ventures LLC is, according to the  Washington Post , basically a pipeline to Trump:

In [Trump’s] financial disclosure released last year, he’s identified as the [CIC Ventures LLC’s] “manager, president, secretary and treasurer” and the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust is identified as a 100 percent owner of the business. The same entity also receives royalties from his book “A MAGA Journey” and speaking engagements.

In case it’s not already obvious: if you look at the company’s documents, you’ll find the principal address for CIC Ventures LLC is 3505 Summit Boulevard, West Palm Beach, Florida. That is a Trump golf course . Moreover, in a 2022 disclosure, Nick Luna is listed as a manager. Luna was Trump’s personal assistant and body man.

So, I’m sorry, but let me ask again: Is Trump making money off this?

The New York Times reports that “according to a person familiar” (classic) Trump will receive royalties from sales.

You could have just said that.

I wanted to tell you about the other stuff I found. Any other questions?

Yes. Who is Lee Greenwood?

The country singer who wrote “God Bless the USA.” Greenwood is a fierce MAGA guy who otherwise made news after pulling out of an NRA concert in response to the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting.

Does Greenwood have a Christmas album with an oddly sexual cover?

Yes. Look at this .

Perfect sweater. Anyway, I feel like I’m experiencing deja vu. Hasn’t Trump made headlines before with a Bible?

You’re probably recalling that despicable photo-op when Trump held up a Bible in front of St. John’s Church, which had been a location of racial justice protests in the days prior. There was a complicated saga, afterward, about whether or not Trump deployed the police to clear protesters to get to the church. An Inspector General’s report ultimately concluded that he did not.  

Man, it’s pretty rough remembering all the awful shit we went through with him as president.

Yep. If you ever want to wallow in political depression, check out this quick compilation .

But wait. Wasn’t there another time Trump and the Bible made waves for something far more stupid?

Christian nationalists adore Trump, so there have probably been many times that Trump has referenced the Bible. But you might also be thinking of this incredible clip of Trump attempting to name his favorite verse .

Has a presidential candidate ever partnered on a holy text sale with a country musician?

Not to my knowledge. But this is from a dude who just last week seemed to compare his current legal jeopardy with the persecution of Jesus Christ. Happy Easter!

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