Quotes About Reading

A few days ago, a woman had come in with swatches of fabric and asked him to find her books only in those colors. Last week a man had been looking for War and Peace, and when Mitchell explained that he was temporarily out of anything by Tolstoy, the man asked if he had it by anyone else. It was a terrible time for books.

particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.

If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well-viewed!

Il n'y a pas de livres en ce monde que chacun devrait lire, il n'y a que des livres qu'une personne devrait lire à un certain moment, dans un certain endroit, dans des circonstances données et à une certaine époque de sa vie. Je crois que la lecture, comme le mariage, est déterminée par le destin.

Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.

There is no proper time and place for reading. When the mood for reading comes, one can read anywhere

And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted

I take it that I have to address an intelligent and reading community who will peruse what I say, weigh it, and then judge whether I advance improper or unsound views, or whether I advance hypocritical and deceptive and contrary views in different portions of the country. I believe myself to be guilty of no such thing as the latter, though, of course, I cannot claim that I am entirely free from all error in the opinions I advance.

The glory of the library for me is how many of the books are in poor physical condition. They are books that have been read and read intensely. They are knocked about and shopworn. I would be ashamed of a book whose spine was not broken.

You cannot have a taste for minimalist décor if you seriously read books.

The idea that I was building a library to bequeath to the next generation is one of the greatest fallacies of my life. The next generation don't want old books – they don't seem to want books at all.

The relationship with my library on a Kindle feels more intimate, like a shelled animal carrying its home on its back.

The books, as I have already said, are a library. In a library, you do not read a book to the last page and dispose of it: you return, you return. ... I return in memory and imagination, but I return by taking a book down from the shelf, and reading a few pages. That is a library. A full larder for the soul.

Nothing can quite take the place of reading a good book out loud together. It can be calming, comforting, and inspiring. It is a powerful opportunity to bond and share in the delight of a good story.

Just looking at them I grow greedy, as if they were freshly baked loaves waiting on their shelves to be broken open--that one and that--and I make my choice in a mood of exalted luck, browsing among them like a cow in sweetest pasture. For life is continuous as long as they wait to be read--these inked paths opening into the future, page after page, every book its own receding horizon. And I hold them, one in each hand, a curious ballast weighing me here to earth.

It is s shame that more people do not appreciate the value of "a good read". I was fortunate enough to have had elementary school teachers who would read to us while we were to put our heads down on the desk and visualize the story and characters. It set me up for a lifetime of enjoying reading....

For the longest time I was so sick I didn't have the strength or inclination to read, but looking at my books stacked up on the bedside table was comforting, like having old friends sitting in the room with me, friends who didn't require anything of me, friends who brought me great pleasure just with their presence, waiting until I could engage with them again.... bibliophiles know the inanimate pleasure of the friendship with books.

I love to be scared. I'm currently reading Colson Whitehead's Zone One, right?--?last night I thought, okay, I'll stop at the next section break and go to sleep. Only the next section break began in an old farmhouse in Northampton. As I was reading the book in an old farmhouse in Northampton, I kept going for a few more pages.

I was a misfit, but I think most teenagers feel that way. I don't care if you were a popular jock or the kid who spent his lunch hours in a stairwell reading a book, we all seem to have dealt with insecurities of one kind or another throughout our high school years.

Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches.

Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously put you off the activity altogether.

So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches.

Read. Read until your eyes are sore. Then read some more.

Reading as an adult, for pleasure, is infinitely better than reading the stuff assigned to you back in school. You get to choose what you want to read.