Reading Quotes

Lectio, quae placuit, decies repetita placebit.(What we read with pleasure we can read many times with pleasure.)

~ Horace

When he [Malevranche] happened to find Descartes' book entitled Man in a book shop on the rue Saint Jaques, he leafed through it, bought it and read it with so much pleasure that he was forced at times to interrupt his reading, so loud were the beatings of his heart due to the extreme pleasure he had in doing so. Those who never put down a book of erudition, science or philosophy, to catch their breath, so to speak, and recover from the strong emotion they experience, certainly ignore of of the most exquisite pleasures of intellectual life.

~ Étienne Gilson

It became clear that Keisha Blake could not start something without finishing it. If she climbed onto the boundary wall of Caldwell, she was compelled to walk the entire wall, no matter the obstructions in her path (beer cans, branches). This compulsion, applied to other fields, manifested itself as intelligence. Every unknown word sent her to a dictionary--in search of something like completion--and every book led to another book, a process that, of course, could never be completed. This route through early life gave her no small portion of joy, and, indeed, it seemed at first that her desires and her capacities were basically aligned. She wanted to read things--could not resist wanting to read things--and reading was easily done, and relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, that she should receive any praise for such reflexive habits baffled the girl, for she knew herself to be fantastically stupid about many things. Wasn't it possible that what others mistook for intelligence was in fact only a sort of mutation of the will?

~ Zadie Smith

As ever, books remained a medium through which Theodore and Edith connected and interpreted larger world.

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

I have built a city from the books I've read. A good book sings a a timeless music that is heard in the choir lofts, and balconies, and theaters that thrived within that secret city inside me.

~ Pat Conroy

We bring to everything we read the expectations we have built up by a lifetime of reading.

~ Richard Marius

How are we to spend our lives, anyway? That is the real question. We read to seek the answer, and the search itself--the task of a lifetime--becomes the answer.

~ Lynne Sharon Schwartz

…the primary trait of young adult literature is that the author’s emphasis is on plot and character and not on his own brilliance. And because few people talk about whether a young adult work is commercial or literary; the two are still in sync, and everyone’s benefitting.

~ Eliot Schrefer

Leaders are readers, disciples want to be taught and everyone has gifts within that need to be coached to excellence.

~ Wayde Goodall

Readership is highly dependent upon format and distribution as much as it is on content.

~ Sara Sheridan

But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?Yes, I am fond of history.I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome.

~ Jane Austen

One of the most difficult things when you were trying to navigate the world of books was dealing with all the unreliable authors. They were so unbelievably tricky to keep track of. An author might write a brilliant book, only to follow it up with something utterly mediocre. Or, and this was almost worse, one might have written a brilliant book but then turn out to be dead. Then there were those authors who started a series but never finished it.

~ Katarina Bivald

Books are the most important of all my possessions. They capture the thoughts, feelings, dreams and lives of their authors, welcoming us into their worlds and inspiring us to emulate their adventures.

~ Fennel Hudson

I like to read books one after another. Immerse myself in a book, and then immerse myself in the next book, and just keep going until there aren't any more books left to swim in. That's why I hate when authors die. I cannot stand it. There will be no more books forthcoming from that person. Their future books died with them. In the past I have found a series of books and loved it so much that all I wanted to do was read and read and read those books for the rest of my life. Then I would find out that the author was dead. Had in fact been dead for many a year. This has happened to me several times.

~ Alison Mcghee

Am reading more of Oscar Wilde. What a tiresome, affected sod.

~ Noël Coward

I like to read as much as I can from every genre. That way, I can express my love for all writers.

~ Jen Selinsky

There is in Albert Camus’ literary craftsmanship a seductive intelligence that could almost make a reader dismiss his philosophical intentions if he had not insisted on making them so clear.

~ Aberjhani

An old book was a time capsule. When you opened the front cover, you opened a door to another world—a world accessible through a kind of looking glass made of hard-board and cloth. The author’s voice resonated in the reader’s head with the same words that had resonated in his own as he wrote them. He spoke to the reader from the past. What he had witnessed, experienced, learned, and discovered would live forever. You only had to turn a page to travel in time.

~ Stephen Parrish

I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that’s made by one person, but that’s not true… Every reading of a book is a collaboration between the reader and the writer who are making the story up together.

~ John Green

When the founding fathers conceived of this new nation, they understood that the education of its citizens would be essential to the health of their democratic enterprise. Knowledge was not just a luxury; it was essential.

~ Azar Nafisi

It is not just bookstores and libraries that are disappearing but museums, theaters, performing arts centers, art and music schools— all those places where I felt at home have joined the list of endangered species. The San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and my own hometown paper, The Washington Post, have all closed their weekend book review sections, leaving books orphaned and stranded, poor cousins to television and the movies. In a sign of the times, the Bloomberg News website recently transferred its book coverage to the Luxury section, alongside yachts, sports clubs and wine, as if to signal that books are an idle indulgence of the super-rich. But if there is one thing that should not be denied to anyone rich or poor it is the opportunity to dream.

~ Azar Nafisi

The next time you feel yourself giving in to the sometimes overwhelming urge to panic about the fate of literature in the digital age, follow this simple remedy: remember that you dream. For that is ironclad proof . . . that literature—that narrative art in whatever form—will never die. Humans, strange creatures that we are, make sense of our lives by telling stories. In the space between each day and the next, we refresh our minds by concocting the most fantastic and elaborate fictions. We spend roughly a third of our lives thus, re-arranging our scattered experiences into stories. That we do it at all is bizarre and inexplicable. But as long as we do it, we will crave stories—human stories, stories that speak to us—in our waking life. The Internet, powerful as it is, cannot change that.

~ Adam Hammond

I run my fingers down the spines of old books and ancient tales. I smell the ink and feel the pages as I delicately peer at the words and paragraphs. Each book home to a story, giving its characters immortality. I smile and think that perhaps someday, I will make a home out of these pages too. And sit on a shelf, ready and waiting to share my story with the next reader.

~ Liz Newman

He sat there studiously bent over his work (Bill saw him), which lay in a slant of crisp white winterlight, his face sober and absorbed, knowing that to be a librarian was to come as close as any human being can to sitting in the peak-seat of eternity’s engine.

~ Stephen King

I asked, how is knowledge found? 'You must learn how to read, little sister,' he said.

~ David Mitchell

Seriously?” Spartacus looked amazed. “I thought this looked the same to everyone. We’re in a massive library that stretches all the way to the sky. It’s beautiful, with oak and teak shelves, gorgeous patterns in the wood, and beautiful books. There’s endless amounts to read and look at.

~ Kaza Kingsley

Read what you like, not what you're told to like. That way you'll read for a lifetime.

~ Carew Papritz

Envy, as distasteful as it is, has seeped into my mind on rare occasions, and those I've envied, although few in number, have only been those that live a life of leisure with peace of mind and time to do such wonderful things as read.

~ Donna Lynn Hope

Everything you read, becomes a part of your life.

~ Aman Jassal

If you don’t want to waste your time on thinking, start reading.

~ Aman Jassal

Reading is like a bridge which fills the gap between the real world and the imaginations.

~ Aman Jassal

The man who does not read miss a great literature of knowledge. You must dare to read and reread.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The act of reading will enrich your life.Become a lifelong learner and a reader.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I have falling in love with reading.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

In reading you must pursue to become a creator.

~ Aman Jassal

A classic is read not to enjoy but only to be boast about it.

~ Aman Jassal

Life with books makes my world complete.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Read to live another life, even if only for a chapter.

~ Jordan Urtso

Get someone-anyone-to read books to you. Having books read to you at any age is the supremo ultimato of living.

~ Carew Papritz

..he read whatever came his way, as if it had been ordained by fate,..

~ Gabriel García Márquez