Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Books and reading
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“Letters of friendship, of love, of hate, of business, of state, have come into new value within the last twenty-five years. Reading them has come to be one of the most alluring pleasures of a large class of persons.”
Mary Augusta Jordan (1855–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The letter writer who spends his individuality in faddish paper, colored ink, and enigmatic paging, who 'crosses' his manuscript or insists upon paper so thin that it is hard to know which side one is reading, will need large revenues of talent to keep him from living behind his means in his claims on his reader's attention.”
Mary Augusta Jordan (1855–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I found it so absorbing, I love reading, it came easy to me.”
Abiola Odejide (born 1946) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Responding to why she opted for English Language in an interview where she recalls her odyssey in the academic community. 2011
“Reading clubs in school were important because it encourages critical thinking and increases the ability of understanding and advised students to have deeper engagement with stories in their communities and beyond.”
Ayo Ayoola-Amale (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My average day has evolved over the years as I have graduated from being a junior to a more senior researcher. Earlier on, I’d spend a lot of time in the laboratory generating data and less time in the office reading scientific literature, analysing data and writing up my work.”
Faith Osier (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I learned to have pleasure in reading simply because I love stories.”
Abdulrazak Gurnah (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Recently the things that I’ve enjoyed reading are writers from Africa, like Maaza Mengiste, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. These are people who are doing brilliantly well I think, and in both of those cases, they’ve just published their second novels. So very early in their writing careers. But also I admire writers like J.M. Coetzee, Nuruddin Farah, Michael Ondaatje, I can name several.”
Abdulrazak Gurnah (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In all his fleeing, seeking, tricking, escaping, negotiating, working, whoring, wondering, reading, lying, learning, wrestling, questioning, seeing, tasting, hearing, and journeying, nothing had suggested a vision of “home” or “belonging” until that light-splattered dawn when he glimpsed a little creature dancing with the sparkling Pate sea.”
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is clear when reading about the Holocaust that evil exists. But what was less apparent to me until I began to do research (for "The World That We Knew") was how much good there also is in the world.”
Alice Hoffman (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For me, magic is reading and writing.”
Alice Hoffman (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For me, reading and magic always went together...For me, literature and magic have always gone together in terms of subject matter but also in what literature does to a reader – it casts a magic spell.”
Alice Hoffman (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a pattern of self-immolation familiar to any writer worth reading. The writer does not even remotely look upon this as a hardship. It is a way of life; a necessary an chosen way of life. Witty conversation, purposely dull dialogue, love, murder, marriage, birth, violence, triumph, failure, death—anything can happen in that room.”
Edna Ferber (1885–1968) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Kind of Magic (1963)
“Through the Quakers, who believed in equality for women, I first came into touch with the woman suffrage movement. I began to be very much interested in the question, especially after reading about Lucy Stone, one of the earliest fighters against Negro slavery, and a leader for many years in the struggle for woman's suffrage.”
Ella Reeve Bloor (1862–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Nadaistas are a miracle. In many ways they are fighters. I've never seen a whole nation living the exaltation of poetry as if it were a political party. After my reading, I tried to save myself from the Cali effusion and I retreated to my dark room in the hotel. Success frightened me. Or the noise of the crowds. (1964)”
Raquel Jodorowsky (1927–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Linguistic erasure on maps is where you first experience the betrayal of language; the erasure of Palestine from the map continues today. Your linguistic consciousness from an early age is built on reading these omissions. This is something I think I’ve been concerned with since the first text I wrote.”
Adania Shibli (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And so, through reading, distance in time and space becomes one. Memory is the necessary guide, the one that settles conflicts, the one that fills in the gaps. The great warehouse of forgotten things that are one day recovered. Amid the dust and spiderwebs, the mists establish their kingdom without the least haste. Just wait a while, and they clear away. (p112)”
Angelina Muñiz-Huberman (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For me, literature is the place for all concerns. It is the act of reading, the act of writing and the act of engaging in deep reflection.”
Véronique Tadjo (born 1955) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tadjo spoke on literature in 2022.
“only in our own time do we see many women poets having careers in the same sense that men always have, which involves solving problems and moving on to other problems...It is a joy, reading through a woman's work, to watch her grow too large for herself, shed her skin and emerge new.”
Alicia Ostriker (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Heidi is what got me started in reading.”
Maggie Aderin-Pocock (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reading a classic, I believe, ought to entail an element of foreignness...Classics are windows into an epoch, not only in content but in form.”
Ilan Stavans (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really love working with new directors. I've been reading a lot of stuff from new writers, and it's really exciting. But so is working with someone as brilliant and exciting as Sigourney. It's great to sit in both of those worlds.”
Wunmi Mosaku (born 1986) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hand that writes must always try to ignore the reading eye. (July 7, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 78)”
Jules Renard (1864–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To every woman reading this: Your well-being matters. Your healing is powerful. Your resilience is shaping a better world. Do not give up!”
Ariane Uwamahoro (born 1988) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Resilient women, resilient minds: celebrating women in mental health The NewTimes (March 08, 2025) *I chose to practice sports Journalism because I felt I could,” says Uwamahoro, who joined the media industry in 2009 on…
“Cyberbullying is heavy. I was reading on social media, newspapers and everywhere, wondering when all this was coming to an end.”
Rachel Shebesh wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I devote a lot of time reading about and consuming the different art forms that we live with. I have tried to paint, I have made furniture, I have designed clothes, and I have always created experiences.”
Reni Folawiyo wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you get all your schoolwork for the day done in, say, three hours, you can spend the rest of the time reading or making up stories or whatever else.”
Jordan Ifueko (born 1993) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jordan Ifueko Talks with Roger", The Horn Book, Inc. (April 20, 2020)
“At 18, 19 queer theory felt really glamorous and the place to get answers, and I feel like I understood about 1% of what I was reading. Barthes really spoke to me, Judith Butler's work felt highly important and I'm sure I still don't really understand it and that's become OK with me over the years. Queer theory was just really cool.”
Andrea Lawlor (born 1971) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in The Guardian (2019)
“I find myself excited about reading African historical fiction more than other genres because it feels to me that this is actually new and exciting.”
Leila Aboulela (born 1964) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview (2023)
“As if reading his mind, Jamal-al-Din said, 'To get what you love, you must first be patient with what you hate." (p61)”
Leila Aboulela (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reading per se becomes exciting; essential to nation-building, individual-building and indeed world-building. It is essentially a certain sensitising of the other whether that other is an eagle or a fork or a person or a foreigner or one’s other self… the list, the joy, the communication with that other, is as nourishing of the soul and the spirit as it is endless.”
Karen King-Aribisala wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't have to do something big to change the world. Start by doing a small act like reading and informing yourself about what is happening around you.”
Evelyn Acham (born 1991) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Climate Justice Activist Evelyn Acham Speaks at Breck's US Chapel. Breck School. (April 21, 2021)
“To keep reading. And write, despite the convenient excuse of 'life'.”
Pemi Aguda wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I started working, my mother was making four times what I was earning so I was like ‘I have been reading a lot and this woman hasn’t been in school, not even one day and she is making a lot of money, is this how I am going to continue in this corporate world while my mother is out there, being her own boss, making a lot of money?’ Basically that’s how I entered into farming”
Beauty Manake wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“reading is one of our greatest human treasures, to be passed on from generation to generation, so the world might be a better place for everyone. (Acknowledgements)”
Ruth Behar (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't put anything important in your stories you don't use all through. To me, this is what's fun for the writer and fun, too, in reading.”
Carol Emshwiller (1921–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do think that reading aloud, or performing one’s own work is very helpful to the writing process. You can hear the voices you are creating, see the scenes you’ve created, and where the text falters.”
LeAnne Howe (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One issue is that we’re used to reading in translation and other countries aren’t. We know more about your history than you know about ours. There’s two ways to deal with that. Get angry at the inequality. Or try to explain what’s going on.”
Mariana Enríquez (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writing, in a way, is listening to the others’ language and reading with the others’ eyes. The more ears I am able to hear with, the farther I see the plurality of meaning and the less I lend myself to the illusion of a single message.”
Trinh T. Minh-ha (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...America absolutely is a multiracial, diverse, society, but because of that, people don’t feel like they need to expand, because they feel like they’re already reading from other races or cultures...”
Daisy Rockwell (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...As a translator, when you do such in-depth reading of a text, you're so much more aware the way woman writers give space to women's thoughts and feelings without compromising the male characters either...”
Daisy Rockwell (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...I think the comedy helps people who don’t necessarily have my same battles want to keep reading...”
Jenny Lawson (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... be ever reading, exhorting, and teaching in God's word, that the people of God run not unto other doctrines ...”
Myles Coverdale (1488–1569) said by 1569 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who said the pen was mightier than the sword ought to have tried reading "" to Motor Mechanics.”
Tom Sharpe (1928–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[G]ames so widespread among the young distract them from dangerous activities like reading and thinking: games do away with those intolerable viruses called ideas.”
Guillaume Faye (1949–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reactionary's reading of history is as superficial as the conservative's is profound. The reactionary sees the world as he has known it; the conservative sees it as it has been and will always be. He distinguishes the transitory from the eternal. Exactly what has been, can never be again. But what the world has once brought forth she can bring forth again.”
Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (1876–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm someone who cares very deeply about critics and what critics think. So I'm on Rotten Tomatoes, reading every single review. Like, I care, you know, I respect these people.”
Melanie Lynskey (born 1977) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Envelope, Yvonne Villarreal and Navani Otero (2 August 2022)
“Before reporting for duty today, I met two of my brothers from Ogun Central after which we debated and passed 4 bills at the Senate on Tax Reforms for second reading and had a Valedictory Session for late Senate President, Senator Joseph Wayas.”
Solomon Adeola (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Courses that require reading and reflection and introspection in literature, theory and criticism, history and philosophy are becoming very thinly subscribed. All over the world, not only in Nigeria. It's a crisis of contemporary culture. Obviously we need to do something about it, but I honestly don't know what at the moment.”
Femi Osofisan (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am one of those worried about the future of AI. Already, reading the essays of my students and engaging them in conversation afterwards, you can't but notice the disparity, the discordance between their knowledge and the essay that is AI-assisted.”
Femi Osofisan (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the snobs are ever with us, snobs of art, of place, of pelf. And, reading this, I rather think I might be one myself.”
C. J. Dennis (1876–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Songs of Snobs", in Random Verse (1952)