Quotes About Reading

En cuanto a nosotros, aficionados a la lectura feliz, no leemos ni releemos más que lo que nos gusta, con un pequeño orgullo de lector mezclado con mucho entusiasmo.

In this admiration, which goes beyond the passivity of contemplative attitudes, the joy of reading appears to be the reflection of the joy of writing, as though the reader were the writer's ghost.

The habit of reading is absolutely critical today, particularly for Christians. As television turns our society into an increasingly image dominated culture, Christians must continue to be people of the Word. When we read, we cultivate a sustained attention span, an active imagination, a capacity for logical analysis and critical thinking, and a rich inner life. Each of these qualities, which have proven themselves the essential to a free people is under assault in a TV dominated culture.

Year followed struggling year for me, and all that time I read--I suppose few have ever read so. I began, as most young people do, by reading the books I enjoyed. But I found that narrowed my pleasure...

Having to read a footnote resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.

And as for me, though that I konne but lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yive I feyth and ful credence, And in myn herte have hem in reverence So hertely, that ther is game noon That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, But yt be seldom on the holyday, Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May Is comen, and that I here the foules synge, And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge, Farewel my bok and my devocioun!

Reading the morning newspaper is the realist's morning prayer. One orients one's attitude toward the world either by God or by what the world is. The former gives as much security as the latter, in that one knows how one stands.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you wouldn't read yourself.

church. Therefore, people will believe whatever is preached because they don't read the Word of God for themselves.

I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.

Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don't know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning.

One way to approach the book today might be to think of it not as an intimidating, monolithic entity, but as its original readers experienced it—as eight utterly manageable short books to be read over the leisurely course of a year. Another way might be to admit that you do have time to read an eight-hundred-page book, perhaps even according to a swifter timetable than that of George Eliot's first readers. You just need to reorder your priorities.

When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery-book.

Do you suppose the public reads with a view to its own conversion?

Something he must read, when he was not riding the pony, or running and hunting, or listening to the talk of men. All this was true of him at ten years of age; he had then read through "Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea," which was neither milk for babes, nor any chalky mixture meant to pass for milk, and it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

I have always believed that a human being could withstand almost anything if he were just allowed to read.

I first started reading about Barack and taking notes when he won the Iowa caucuses in January 2008 because I was embarrassed that, at that point, I knew virtually nothing about him.

Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.

I'm not over-enamored of complicated books, and wonder if it's more for the author's ego than anything else?

At the same time, reading an action script... It makes me wonder. Was The Matrix a good script? I don't know.

I think movies do play a valuable role in turning people on to the act of reading. I think that phenomenon just creates readers. At first they're going to love 'Harry Potter,' or they may love 'The Hunger Games,' but after that, they're going to love the act of reading and wonder, 'What else can I read?'

I read everything, but generally more fact than fiction - especially autobiographies and biographies. I've read 'Long Walk to Freedom' by Nelson Mandela at least twice on holiday. Every time, I'm totally awed by his vision, strength and forgiveness. I feel honoured to have got to know him and his wonderful wife Graca over the years.

You are wise, witty and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of stuff.