Reading quotes
6.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside reading — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I've just finished reading a book about the brilliant Margaret Rutherford. She wasn't a beauty, but inside she was absolutely blazing and passionate about her work. She's one of those life-affirming characters."
"I must confess that I'm not a great reader. At the moment I'm reading my son's 'Stig of the Dump' by Clive King and I've got a plant catalogue on the go."
"Preparation for becoming attentive to Christianity does not consist in reading many books ... but in fuller immersion in existence."
"I hate being too serious about anything. If I'm with my friend, I want to be having fun with him or her. And if anybody is reading my story, I want them to be not only reading the story, but I want them to feel they're having fun; that they're enjoying it. So any way you can make it more informal, more fun-filled, more amusing - instead of just a dry story that goes on and on - if there's any way to do that, I like to try and do it."
"I enjoyed reading Batman, and Superman, and all the super ones, but I never wished I created them. I've got to let there be some work for other people!"
"I do know that people enjoy reading a comic book and saving it and collecting the comics. And sharing them and trading them with friends. That may be something you can't do as easily with digital comics."
"It's the fact that fans still care. I like all the comics conventions: The smaller ones are easier, the bigger ones are exciting.... Each one I say: Never again. But they're all great.... These things are important because they keep the fans' interest alive in comics. They keep the fans reading and their imaginations stimulated."
"We build our personalities laboriously and through many years, and we cannot order fundamental changes just because we might value their utility; no button reading "positive attitude" protrudes from our hearts, and no finger can coerce positivity into immediate action by a single and painless pressing."
"That's the curse of the reading class. We can be seduced by a good story even at the most inopportune moments."
"Constant reading will pull you into a place - a mind-set, if you like the phrase - where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness."
"When you stack up all the years we are allowed against all there is to read, time is very short indeed."
"Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair"
"Kindle, isn’t it?” the waitress asked. “I got one for Christmas, and I love it. I’m reading my way through all of Jodi Picoult’s books.” “Oh, probably not all of them,” Wesley said. “Huh? Why not?” “She’s probably got another one done already. That’s all I meant.” “And James Patterson’s probably written one since he got up this morning!” she said, and went off chortling."
"Waiting rooms were made for books-of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone's favorite, the john."
"Terrifying. . . . A Dark Matter is populated with vivid, sympathetic characters, and driven by terrors both human and supernatural. It's the kind of book that's impossible to put down once it has been picked up. It kept me reading far into the night. Straub builds otherworldly terror without ever losing touch with his attractive cast of youngsters, who age beautifully. Put this one high on your list."
"The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate - four to six hours a day, every day - will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them."
"If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway... You must be prepared to do some serious turning inward toward the life of the imagination, and that means, I'm afraid, that Geraldo, Keith Obermann, and Jay Leno must go. Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it."
"You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself."
"I did a couple of writing seminars in Canada with high school kids. These were the bright kids; they all have computers, but they can't spell. Because spell-check won't [help] you if you don't know through from threw. I told them, "If you can read in the 21st century, you own the world." Because you learn to write from reading."
"I read a random issue when I was a kid, but no, I wasn't super familiar with the characters [Captain Victory] until I started researching them. What I found once I started reading back issues however, was this crazy, sprawling, [Jack] Kirby space epic."
