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Books and reading
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“They that have read about everything are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with the materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collection,—we must chew them over again.”
William Ellery Channing (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This book you've read is just a story. I made it up. It is not designed to change anyone's beliefs or worldview, unless after reading it you've decided to be kinder to your fellow humans (which is okay), or you decide you really would like to teach yoga to an elephant, in which case, please get videotape.”
Christopher Moore (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The old linear pattern of thinking by reading and describing from left to right, top to bottom has many problems in organizing information coming from eyes, ears, etc. For example, the ability to read and understand the context of a book is different from memorizing them simply as sentences.”
Tony Buzan (1942–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called -- called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”
Jack London (1876–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies. Aeneas did. Odysseus did. Listen to Delany, a prophet.”
Kathy Acker (1947–1997) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Delany the Magician", a foreword to Trouble on Triton (1996) by Samuel R. Delany, and reprinted in Acker's collection Bodies of Work (1996)
“Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”
Ezra Pound (1885–1972) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guide to Kulchur (1938), p. 55
“Writing to me is an advanced and slow form of reading. If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Morrison said this in her talk at the annual meeting of the Ohio Arts Council in Cincinnati in September 1981. Variants, unsourced:
“Up, and at my chamber all the morning and the office doing business, and also reading a little of L'escholle des filles, which is a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world.”
Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) first seen 1668 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: February 9, 1668
“I'm reading Our Ecstatic Days, by Steve Erickson. It's an extraordinary journey and the most exciting thing I've found since The Master and Margarita, which I've read about 20 times. I like being taken away somewhere by a book.”
Sienna Guillory (born 1975) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My Life in Travel: 'I love galloping my friend's racehorse along Article. The London Independent. 28 May 2005.
“What I have written will bring no change to our textbooks or to the education system which produces them. Few will read this book. Fewer will remember it after reading it. Our own little stubborn world will go on as it has been going on for 45 years.”
Khursheed Kamal Aziz (1927–2009) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Khursheed Kamal Aziz The Murder of History, critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan, 1993
“Before reading Romance, one should read the Book of Poetry.”
Jin Shengtan (1608–1661) said by 1661 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Romance of Western Bower (Hunan People's Publishing House, 1997), Preface, p. 10
“When I read a book, I look out for the message the author is trying to pass across to the reader. Does the work contain wisdom? Have I learnt anything from it? I also look out for entertainment. Have I been sufficiently entertained? I believe strongly that apart from imparting knowledge to the reader, a writer should entertain the reader, because reading should be a joyous experience.”
Zaynab Alkali (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Had I known that my first novel would become required reading for all students applying to university in Nigeria, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to write it. It has been an incredible honor for me to have a book read by so many people and especially exciting to know that the novel is, in some small way, inspiring a new generation of writers.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had an early passion for reading, especially for Horatio Alger stories. I went to the public library almost every day, and when I found a Horatio Alger book I had not read before, it was like finding a gold mine.”
William S. Paley (1901–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2014 edition
“At a particular time of the day, everywhere will be shut down; everybody must hold a book to read for 20-30 minutes, including the gateman. When we started that project, we saw that many of our students were reading at frustration level.”
Kate Omenugha (born 1965) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prof Kate speak on reading culture in 2019.
“But influence is a funny thing. I sometimes feel I’m more influenced by the things that have happened to me, than by anything I’ve read. When I’m reading, I feel I am teaching myself about the tools I want to use, which I feel is a separate thing from what will influence this or that book.”
Catherine Lacey (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You go into the office and take a book or two from the shelves. You read a few lines, like your life depended on reading 'em right. But you know your life doesn't depend on anything that makes sense, and you wonder where in the hell you got the idea it did; and you begin to get sore.”
Jim Thompson (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If out of reading this book you get just one thing—an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people’s point of view, and see things from their angle—if you get that one thing out of this book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your career.”
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Kindle is the most successful electronic book-reading tablet so far, but that’s not saying much; Silicon Valley is littered with the corpses of e-book reader projects.”
David Pogue (born 1963) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Kindle: Good Before, Better Now," The New York Times, February 24, 2009.
“Authors have a greater right than any copyright, though it is generally unacknowledged or disregarded. They have a right to the reader's civility. There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it, and to these the author has a claim. Yet many people think that when they buy a book they buy with it the right to abuse the author.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like reading Ball Tongue lyrics and all that stuff. And they published a book, and I wouldn't give my lyrics, and it's all wrong in the book, and I giggle. It's funny.”
Jonathan Davis (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are great numbers of people to whom the act of reading a book — any sort of book — is wondrous; they speak of the reader in the tone of warm approbation which they use otherwise when referring to pregnant women, or the newly dead.”
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We also had the inestimable advantage of beginning each school day with an act of worship which included a reading from the King James Bible which, with the Book of Common Prayer, has had more influence on our language, literature, history and culture than any other book, but which today a majority of our children will never encounter.”
P. D. James (1920–2014) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'English must be saved', The Times (14 June 1993), p. 14
“The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If Brideshead Revisited is not a great book, it's so like a great book that many of us, at least while reading it, find it hard to tell the difference.”
Clive James (1939–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am just now not reading but devouring Captain Mahan's book and am trying to learn it by heart. It is a first-class book and classical on all points.”
Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) first seen 1003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to an American friend (1893), quoted in John Rohl, Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy 1888-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 1003
“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; —& they are the life, the soul of reading; — take them out of this book for instance, — you might as well take the book along with them.”
Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) said by 1768 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They have said that the Qur'an, which was a book for reading, understanding and salvation, should not know its meaning except for the Imams, and thus they have despised that book. Shiite scholars considered the Qur'an incomprehensible to the general public and preferred "hadiths" to it.”
Ahmad Kasravi (1890–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I did a lot of reading on my own because I loved that particular world. You open up a book and you learn about something that's much more exciting than your everyday grind, a world of magic beyond your own. And I feel that the beginnings of writing really start whereby you know that when you open a book there's a magical world there.”
Bessie Head (1937–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“First of all, it is a fact that this is just a comic book, not a personal diary. A diary records and displays a person's growth and changes in life, whereas a comic book is just a recreational reading material, and also the characters are merely fictional.”
Eddie See Yew Lee (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Write your own book instead of reading someone else's book about success.”
Herb Brooks (1937–2003) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Spoken to his players during the Miracle on Ice game on Febraury 22, 1980.
“In one of the rooms of the Fortuny Palace there are eight books from Prospero's Library. They are magical books. In many senses all books are magical.”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine- tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Books ... hold within them the gathered wisdom of humanity, the collected knowledge of the world's thinkers, the amusement and excitement built up by the imaginations of brilliant people. Books contain humor, beauty, wit, emotion, thought, and, indeed, all of life. Life without books is empty.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Puzzles of the Black Widowers (1990), pp. 74-75
“If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Encantadas (1854), Sketch Eighth
“I don't know about philosophy of Mayans. We have very little information due to the efficiency of the Spanish es and... mostly their priests, who burned all the books... hundreds of thousands of books, and there's three left... [O]ne of them has this Venus calculation... Just imagine our civilization reduced to three books... left by accident.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no future for e-books, because they are not books. E-books smell like burned fuel.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: BookExpo America, Los Angeles (May 2008). Reported in USA Today (June 1, 2008) and The Guardian (3 June 2008)
“Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. … Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Unpacking my Library: A Talk About Book Collecting (1931)
“The hordes of words that fill our books proclaim our ignorance, reveal the obscurities that flood our knowledge. If we were perfectly enlightened, our moral books would contain only maxims and our books on physics and spirituality would contain only axioms and facts. Everything else is clutter and shows no more than our gropings, our efforts, and our difficulties.”
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men are not accustomed to buy books unless they want them. If, on visiting the dwelling of a man of slender means, I find the reason why he has cheap carpets and very plain furniture to be that he may purchase books, he rises at once in my esteem. Books are not made for furniture but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.”
Horace Mann (1796–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If they succeed in destroying our books or even making many of them inaccessible, there will be a chilling effect on the hundreds of other libraries that lend digitized books as we do. This could be the burning of the Library of Alexandria moment—millions of books from our community's libraries—gone.”
Brewster Kahle (born 1960) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Four publishers are trying to destroy the Internet Archive and digital lending (March 21, 2023)
“It is by books that mind speaks to mind, by books the world’s intelligence grows, books are the tree of knowledge, which has grown into and twined its branches with those of the tree of life, and of their common fruit men eat and become as gods knowing good and evil.”
Charles Kegan Paul (1828–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted as epigraph in Stanley Unwin, The Truth about Publishing (1926), title page
“The atmosphere of the place soothed her automatically; the rich lantern-lights, the sheer scent of paper and leather, and the fact that everywhere she looked, there were books, books, beautiful books.”
Genevieve Cogman (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I’m out in the world on tour with my books, I’m not selling books. I don’t need that money. Writing these books was giving these kids the knowledge that no matter how big the fire is, they can come through.”
Jenifer Lewis (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Literature is the story of our many and diverse lives—in fiction, poetry, drama, and so forth. Unfortunately, women’s books are much less likely to get published then men’s books. They are much less likely to be reviewed then men’s books.”
Valerie Miner (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We walked lonely es and s, and we delighted in and s, but we made no great lists. Books that I like at the time were books written by observers, people doing the kind of that I wanted to do; books such as Henry Beston's and 's Beach Grass. They exemplified an idea type of natural history: you lived within walking distance of a beach, marsh, woods, or mountain and started observing.”
Lawrence Kilham (1910–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be less concerned about the number of the books you read, and more about the good use you make of them. The best of books is the Bible.”
Christian Scriver (1629–1693) said by 1693 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And grant that a man read all the books of music that ever were wrote, I shall not allow that music is or can be understood out of them, no more than the taste of meats out of cookish receipt books.”
Roger North (1651–1734) first seen 1728 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Musicall Grammarian (1728)
“I read a lot of books that are, for lack of a better word, cross-cultural. I find movies and books that take me — transport me to another culture are the things that I'm most interested in, and always have been.”
Julie Taymor (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life doesn't happen in chapters — at least, not regular ones. Nor do movies. Homer didn't write in chapters. I can see what their purpose is in children's books ("I'll read to the end of the chapter, and then you must go to sleep") but I'm blessed if I know what function they serve in books for adults.”
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the lack of chapters in Discworld books, in an interview by Gavin J. Grant at Booksource.com (2008)