World's Best Known Books and Stories

Written by: Stephen King

Cover by: Craig DeCamps

Published: April 29, 1983

Number of pages: 526

“I find that the more I dislike adults, the more apt I am to call them Sir. “What?”

Written by: Edith Nesbit

Cover by: H.R. Miller

Published: 1904

Publisher: Newnes

Number of Pages: 289

"'I wish they taught magic at school,' Jane sighed. 'I believe if we could do a little magic it might make something happen."

Written by: Robert A, Heinlem

Cover by: Irv Docktor

Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Published: June 2, 1966

Number of pages: 362

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

Written by: Franz Kafka and Max Brod

Translated by: Willa Muir and Edwin Muir

Published: Verlag Die Schmiede

Published: April 26, 1925

Number of pages: 255

“Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.”

Written by: T.H. White

Publisher: Collins

Published: 1958

Number of pages: 639

“It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible.”

Written by: Henrik Ibsen

Translated by: T. Weber, Cevat Memduh Altar, and Michael Meyer

Number of pages: 122

First performed: December 21, 1879

“I must make up my mind which is right, society or I.”

Written by: Sophocles

First performed: 441 CE

Number of pages: 80

“Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death.”

Written by: Ayn Rand

Published by: Bobbs-Merrill Company

Published: 1941

Number of pages: 702

“I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.”

Written by: Darren Aronosky

Illustrated by: Kent Williams

Published by: Vertigo and Titan Books

Published: November 2. 2005

Number of pages: 166

“It seems we struggle for a lifetime to become whole. Few of us ever do ... Most of us end up going out the same way we came in -- kicking and screaming. Most of us don't have the strength -- or the conviction. Most of us don't want to face our fears.”

Written by: Mikhail Bulgakov

T atherine Tiernan O'Connor and Diana Lewis Burgin

Illustrated by Hans Fronius

Published by: YMCA Press

Published: 1966–67 (in serial form), 1967 (in single volume), 1973 (uncensored version)

Number of pages: 372

“I don't have any special talents, just an ordinary desire to live like a human being.”

Publisher: C. A. Reitzel

Published: May 8,1835 – April 7, 1837

Number of pages: 806 pages

“Now he is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes hang, and in whose hand I should like to lay my life's happiness. I will dare everything to win him and an immortal soul.”

Written by: Anonymous

Written: Date disputed (c. 700–1000 AD)

Manuscript: Cotton Vitellius A. xv (c.  975–1010 AD)

First printed edition: Thorkelin (1815)

“And if death does take me, send the hammered mail of my armor to Higlac, return the inheritance I had from Hrethel, and he from Wayland. Fate will unwind as it must!”

Written by; Howard Pyle

Illustrated by: Howard Pyle

Published: 1883

Number of pages: 192

“Will you come with me, sweet Reader? I thank you. Give me your hand.”

Written by: Sir Thomas Malory

Published: 1483

Publisher: William Caxton

Number of pages: 512

“Ah! fair damosel, said Balin, worthiness, and good tatches, and good deeds, are not only in arrayment, but manhood and worship is hid within man's person, and many a worshipful knight is not known unto all people, and therefore.”

Written by: Jacob Grimm and Wilheim Grimm

Published: 1813 - 1857

“Nibble, nibble, where's the mouse? Who's that nibbling at my house?

Written by: Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

Published: 1812

Number of pages: 32

“What is that thing that is so merrily bouncing about?" asked the girl, taking hold of the spindle, for she too wanted to spin.”

“Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre”

Written by: Charles Perrault

Published: 1697

Number of pages: 80

“Her godmother, who was a fairy, said, "You would like to go to the ball, is that not so?”

Written by: Lewis Carroll

Illustrated by: John Tenniel

Publisher: Macmillan

Publication date: December 7, 1871

Number of pages: 208

“Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!"
“Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.”

Written by: Lewis Carroll

Illustrated by: John Tenniel

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: November 1865

Number of pages: 96

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Written by: Ray Bradbury

Illustrated by: Joseph Mugnaini

Published by: Ballantine Books

Published: November 16, 1955

Number of pages: 304

“Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.”

Written by: H.G. Wells

Publisher: William Heinemann (UK) and Harper & Bros (US)

Publication date: 1898

Number of pages: 287

“This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants.”

Written by: Nikos Kazantzakis

Translator: Peter A. Bien

Publisher: Simon & Schuster (USA), Bruno Cassirer (UK)

Published: January 1, 1955

Number of pages: 506

“They had no fear of death, and whoever has no fear of death—the centurion had often meditated on this here in the East—whoever has no fear of death is immortal.”

Written by: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cover by: Francis Cugat

Published: April 10, 1925

Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons

Number of pages: 180

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”

Written by: Salman Rushdie

Published: 1988

Published: Viking Press

Number of Pages: 546

"Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what.”

Written by: Robert C. O'Brien

Illustrated by: Zena Bernstein

Published: 1971

Published by: Antheneum Books

Number of Pages: 233

“When you’ve lived in a cage, you can’t bear not to run, even if what you’re running towards is an illusion.”

Written by: Johanna Spyri

Translated by: Nathan Haskell Dole

Published: 1881

Number of pages: 322

“Let's enjoy the beautiful things we can see, my dear, and not think about those we cannot.”

Written by: Johann Wyss

Illustrated by: Johann Wyss

Publisher: Johann Rudolph Wyss

Translated by: William H. G. Kingston

Published: 1812

“The friends of Columbus thought it very easy to make an egg stand upon its end when he had shown them how to do it.”

Written by: Margaret Atwood

Covers by: T. M. Craan and Jamie Bennett

Published by: McClelland & Stewart

Number of pages: 462

“I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession with undertones of nausea. ”

Written by: Margaret Atwood

Covers by: Tad Aronowicz and Gail Geltner

Published: McClelland & Stewart

Released: 1985

Number of pages: 311

“Don't let the bastards grind you down.”

Written by: Suzanne Collins

Cover by: Tim O'Brien

Published: August 24, 2010

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Number of Pages: 390

“Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”

Written by: Suzanne Collins

Cover by: Tim O'Brien

Published: September 4, 2008

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Number of Pages: 374

"Destroying things is much easier than making them.”

Written by: Suzanne Collins

Cover by: Tim O'Brien

Published: September 1, 2009

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Number of Pages: 391

“Aim higher in case you fall short.”

Written by: Robert Greysmith

Published by: St. Martin’s Press

Published: 1986

Number of pages: 556

“Criminals strike close to home just as the average person chooses stores where he shops daily.”

Written by: Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston

Publication date: 1995

Publisher: Tor Books

Number of pages: 480

“You see, when someone says “it’s impossible,’ I have this very bad habit, I can’t help myself, I immediately contradict that person in the most positive terms possible. A very bad habit, but one that I find hard to break.”

“New York City had a short memory for violence,”

Written by: Ray Bradbury

Cover by: Grey Foy

Published: 1962

Publishers: Simon & Schuster

Number of Pages: 293

“Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can't act if you don't know. Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.” 

Written by: Emily Dickinson

Edited by: Thomas H. Johnson, Mabel Loomis Todd, and Thomas Wentworth Higgins

Publisher: Liitle, Brown, & Company

Published: January 30, 1976

Number of pages: 716

“I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.”

Written by: W.P. Kinsella

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 1982

Number of pages: 285

“You have to make time, even for something as universal as staring at the stars.”

Written by: Peggy Parish

Cover and illustrated by: Fritz Siebel

Published by: Harper & Row

Published: 1968

Number of pages: 38

“Oh, Amelia Bedelia, your first day of work, and I can't be here.”

Written by: Henry Fielding

Published: December, 1751

Number of pages: 687

Published by: Ulan Publishing

“Such indeed was her image, that neither could Shakespeare describe, nor Hogarth paint, nor Clive act, a fury in higher perfection.”

Written by: Jay Anson

Published: September 13, 1977

Published by: Bantam Books, Pretence Hall

Number of pages: 318

“His neck felt stiff and he rotated it, trying to work out the tight feeling. ‘It’s alright!’ he yelled back to Kathy. ‘Jodie’s not here!’ ‘There he is, daddy!’

Written by: L. Frank Baum

Illustrated by: W.W. Denslow

Published: May 17, 1900

Publsher: George M. Hill Company

Number of pages: 184

“True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid...” 

Written by: Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: January 1, 1974

Number of pages: 684

“All the stories had a common thread—that somehow the victims had brought the murders on themselves…”

Written by: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Translated by: Gregory Rabassa

Publisher: Editorial Sudamericana, Harper & Row (US), Jonathan Cape (UK)

Published: 1967, Published in English: 1970

Number of pages: 448

“One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship!”

Written by: Chinua Achebe

Published by: William Heinemann Ltd.

Published: 1958

Number of pages: 224

“If you don't like my story, write your own”

Written by: William Shakespeare

First performed: 1599 - 1601

Number of pages: 128

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

Written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Published: 1605, 1615, 1612, 1620

Publisher: Francisco de Robles

Number of pages: 992

“There is no book so bad...that it does not have something good in it.” 

Written by: Moliere

First performed: June 1, 1666

Number of pages: 104

“The world will not alter for all your meddling.”

Written by: William Shakespeare

First performed: 1606

Number of pages: 384

“Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.“

Written by: William Shakespeare

First performed: 1603

Number of pages: 114

“Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.”

Written by: Thomas Hobbes

Published: 1851

Number of pages: 468

“I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdity of my waking thoughts.”