Quotes About Reading

Learning is often spoken of as if we are watching the open pages of all the books which we have ever read, and then, when occasion arises, we select the right page to read aloud to the universe.

Democracy or reading, democracy of space: our public library tradition, wherever we live in the wide world, was incredibly hard-won for us by the generations before us and ought to be protected, not just for ourselves but in the name of every generation after us.

Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.

His little sister is brilliant. She is at her desk deep in a book, half-opened books all over her desk, all over the floor and the bed. She likes to read, she reads all the time, and she prefers to be reading several things at once, she says it gives endless perspective and dimension.

The words had acted like a charm. They'd released it all, in seconds. They'd made everything happening stand just far enough away. &emsp It was nothing less than magic. &emsp Who needs a passport? &emsp Who am I? Where am I? What am I? &emsp I'm reading.

She is reading whatever it is very assiduously.

Hello, he said. What you reading? Elisabeth showed him her empty hands. Does it look like I'm reading anything? she said. Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.

She unfolds the piece of paper in her hands and she reads again the story written on it.

But now we live in a time and in a culture when mystery tends to mean something more answerable, it means a crime novel, a thriller, a drama on TV, usually one where we'll find out - and where the whole point of reading it or watching it will be that we will find out - what happened.

I hear them. But am I going to let it stop me reading?

It was what we did," Helen [Clyne, Kate Atkinson's daughter] said. "It was a habit, a ritual. You borrowed it, you read it, you brought it back and chose something else, and someone else read whatever you read before and after you. It was communal. That's what public library means: something communal.

There, little girl, don't read, You're fond of your books, I know, But Brother might mope If he had no hope Of getting ahead of you. It's dull for a boy who cannot lead. There, little girl, don't read.

He doesn't know anything," said Klein. "That's his trouble. He's clever, but he doesn't know much. I guess he only began to read books a couple years ago. They excite him too much. He wouldn't read a fairy story. He'd think he was wasting time.

She read Housekeeping, which Heidi loved because the odd people were the good people; The Handmaid's Tale, which she understood was terrifying even if the details were fuzzy; Giovanni's Room, which made her sigh, because people were so stubborn; The Professor's House, which she loved for the spooky dress form and Tom's trip to the old Southwest; and Anywhere But Here, which was Maud's favorite, because it starred a girl.

If I can get on to my sofa and occupy myself for four hours, at intervals through the day, scribbling my notes, and able to read the books that belong to me, in that they clarify the density, and shape the formless mass within, life seems inconceivably rich...

What sense of superiority it gives one to escape reading some book which every one else is reading.

This was, I thought, the language of shy men, men too much alone with their reading and their ideas - politics, war, distant countries, tyrants. Men who would bury their heads in such stuff just to avert their eyes from a woman's simple heartache.

To many the knowledge of reading came from the deciphering of what has been happily termed the Literature of the Bookless. This literature was placed that he who ran might read; and its opening chapters were in the form of inscriptions and legends and mottoes which were placed, not only on buildings and walls, and pillars and bridges, but on household furniture and table utensils. The

I read quickly, flitting and sipping, skipping the boring bits and seizing on the oddities and inconsistencies which are often ignored by the scholars since they interfere with the measured and coherent approach to the matter at hand.

I prefer to be left alone with my books.

Perhaps that's why he became so interested in history, […] He felt that if you read everything and put the pieces all together the real truth would emerge. It would be, somehow, like carpentry. Everything would fit together just so, and you would see in the end something like 'a perfect building called the past.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency -- the belief that the here and now is all there is.

The Bible is not the only means to furnish a mind, but without a book of similar gravity, read with the gravity of the potential believer, it will remain unfurnished.

Turn," Liz said, trying not to hide her impatience at being forced to read at non-speed-of-light pace.