Famous quotes
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Books and reading
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“It was my sensual excessiveness that jarred him [ Jasper Johns.] He was always an intellectual. He read a lot, he wrote poetry – he would read Hart Crane's poems to me, which I loved but didn't have the patience to read myself – and he was often critical of things like my grammar. But you don't let a thing like that bother you if you have only two or three real friends.”
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Engage the people. Don't try to pass a 2,700 page bill — and even they didn't read it! You and I didn't have time to read it. We're too busy trying to live — send our kids to school. That's why I am only going to allow small bills — three pages. You'll have time to read that one over the dinner table. What does Herman Cain, President Cain talking about in this particular bill?”
Herman Cain (1945–2020) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: at Family Leader Presidential Lecture Series in Pella, Iowa, 2011-10-06, quoted in {{cite journal
“Nietzsche says that as soon as he had read a single page of Schopenhauer, he knew he would read every page of him and pay heed to every word, even to the errors he might find. Every intellectual aspirant will be able to name men whom he has read in this way.”
Georg Brandes (1842–1927) said by 1927 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had to read it out to my sister, who was witness to my early dark days, when my mother was afraid what would happen to me. But, I knew I couldn't read without choking up, so I asked Gautami to read it out for me.”
Kamal Haasan (born 1954) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About the letters from Balachander, in “His Master's voice 1 September 2010
“I write what I would like to read – what I think other women would like to read. If what I write makes a woman in the Canadian mountains cry and she writes and tells me about it, especially if she says ‘I read it to Tom when he came in from work and he cried too,’ I feel I have succeeded.”
Kathleen Norris (1880–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kathleen Norris, on the publication of her seventy-eighth book, as cited in: James Charlton. The Writer's quotation book. 1985. p. 34
“I date the Fourth Republic and the Progressive period to 1933. We can read this story in two ways. We can read it as the coming of modern, scientific government in the United States. Or we can read it as the transfer of power from political democracy to the American university system — which, just for the sake of a catchy catchword, I like to call the Cathedral.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I just got on Twitter a couple years ago but I never really used it because nobody followed me and then the show came out and it became an onslaught and I got addicted. … I read tweets, fan art and fan fiction [while recovering from surgery] about Hopper and Joyce (Winona Ryder). I love the passion of the fans. I’ll read it all day — Hopper-Joyce making out. I’ll read it.”
David Harbour (born 1975) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Los Angeles Times (June 7, 2017)
“Not knowing how to read and write is only the top of that morbid state of being. Not knowing how to read and write leads to not knowing where windows come from, how cars are made, how people pay for cars. Not knowing how to read and write is only the top of the problem, because behind that wall you don't know anything and how anything operates in society, and that's the nightmare.”
Jimmy Santiago Baca (born 1952) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On being illiterate in his youth in “An Interview with Poet, Teacher, and Activist Jimmy Santiago Baca” in the Kenyon Review (2017 Aug 8)
“We always heard when we were little that to read a poem we needed to read it slowly and we needed to read it more than once and to write a poem you had to pay close attention, write it slowly. And I think we have to live that way. We really do. There's a Thai proverb Life is so short, we must move very slowly. And I think that the word busy-ness finally just has to go. Busy-ness has to go.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I read in order to write. I read out of obsession with writing...I read in order to find out what I need to know: To illuminate the riddle.”
Cynthia Ozick (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Read, and don’t ever stop. Read across genres. Read non-traditional literatures, like manuals and brochures. You could learn a thing or two; you could attempt a non-traditional story form, like Chikodili Emelumadu did with her exceptional short story, What to do When Your Child Brings Home a Mami Wata”
Ukamaka Olisakwe (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The thing about prose is that you can pick it up and read it by yourself. With the play, you only get half of the experience when you read it and miss a lot. Obviously the prose has the advantage because it was written to be read while a play has to be performed. So a judge has to find a balance.”
Femi Osofisan (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Read, read, read, and learn, learn, learn.”
Aprille Ericsson-Jackson (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Read, read, and read a lot, then write even if it doesn’t make sense at the moment”
Niq Mhlongo (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is almost impossible to make a commercial case for these stories beyond the fact that there will always be people who want to read stories that are well told. I publish what I want to read, and believe strongly that there are many people like me who also want to read that work.”
Eghosa Imasuen (born 1976) first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discussing the financial landscape of African publishing, interviewed in The Communiqué (June 2026).
“To read my book the virgin shy May blush while Brutus standeth by, But when he's gone, read through what's writ, And never stain a cheek for it.”
Robert Herrick (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I recall what you said to me once, that words have the power to change us. Your words have changed me, Tess; they have made me a better man than I would have been otherwise. Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.”
Cassandra Clare (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I could read your mind, love, What a tale your thoughts could tell. Just like a paperback novel, The kind the drugstores sell. Then you reached the part where the heartaches come, The hero would be me. But heroes often fail, And you won't read that book again Because the ending's just too hard to take!”
Gordon Lightfoot (1938–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I began to read the Bible long before I could understand it. Now it seems strange to me that there should have been a time when my spirit was deaf to its wondrous harmonies ... But how shall I speak of the glories I have since discovered in the Bible? For years I have read it with an ever-broadening sense of joy and inspiration; and I love it as I love no other book.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,— Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper. From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.”
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: volume III, chapter VI: "Miscellanea", page 252; letter to William Ogle (22 February 1882)
“One receives the impression from his writings that he made it his plan to read any book whatever that no one else can bear to read.”
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have just read your book [On the Spiritual in Art] from cover to cover, and I will read it once more. I find it pleasing to an extraordinary degree, because we agree on nearly all of the main issues..”
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a letter to Wassily Kandinsky, 18 Dec. 1911; as quoted in Schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa…
“It has been suggested, I think by the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Boothby) that the most constructive suggestion he could make was to urge an early General Election and a return of a Tory Government in Britain. Why on earth should he want to prophesy what might result from a Tory Government when history has the record for him? Why read the crystal when he can read the book?”
Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons, 29 September 1949.
“Every word of Truth proceeds from God, whether that Truth be written in the rocks and read by the geologist or written in the heavens and read by the astronomer or written in the heart of man or written in this old book”
Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read. My principle in researching a novel is 'Read like a butterfly, write like a bee', and if this story contains any honey, it is entirely because of the quality of the nectar I found in the work of better writers.”
Philip Pullman (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The translator translates a book for the ones who are not familiar with its language of origin. If someone can read it in the language of origin, he will not need to read its translation. So, when you translate, you first suppose that you translate it for someone who does not know its language and could not explore that world and that thought.”
Media Kashigar (1956–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You teacher is a leftist? Tell her to read the book The Suffocated Truth. Just read it. There are facts, not the blah blah blah of the left.”
Jair Bolsonaro (born 1955) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Telling students to read a book by Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, dictatorship-era torturer, in Brasília, on 30 September 2019. Bolsonaro tells students to read book by dictatorship-era torturer. The Guardian (…
“If some people are not disposed to believe that morals change with the times, then let them look into the book held most sacred by all the peoples of the West, and read how at one time the idea of Justice was ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ Or look further back still and read of King Solomon, said to be the wisest- which surely also implies the most moral - man who ever lived.”
Cyril Scott (1879–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My own ancestors. I come from poor, landless peasants who left no records. And so I began to read the story of Puerto Rico, and the more I read the story the more I realized I would never find my own ancestors, but I could make my imaginary ancestors. And so the book emerges as a result of my trying to create them, to create the people that might have been.”
Esmeralda Santiago (born 1948) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On what inspired her to write Conquistadora in “Conversation: Esmeralda Santiago, Author of ‘Conquistadora’” in PBS NEWSHOUR (2011 Aug 12)
“Do you remember the moment you first realize you were mortal? That no matter what happened, you would never live long enough to read every book you wanted to read? That you’d die having accomplished only a fraction of your goals?”
Jim C. Hines (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“HOW TO READ A BOOK 1. READ IT 2. CHANGE A LOT 3. REREAD IT”
Liana Finck (born 1986) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My good habits: I don’t really watch television. I read a lot. I teach, which makes me think about what makes good work. I run, which helps me work out s and combat nerves about a first book. I parent, which is radically humbling and physical and informs my characterizations. I always have a in progress. I try not to read rejection letters twice.”
Megan Mayhew Bergman (born 1979) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A book you read when you were a child will read differently when you pick it up later.”
Thando Mgqolozana (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Finnegans Wake is not a book to read, but a book to decipher: as Joyce says, it's about a dreamer, but it's addressed to an ideal reader suffering from ideal insomnia.”
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises (14 June 1953)
“There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, "Did you get an erection?" If the answer is "Yes" from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 17 March 1947
“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Variant translation: A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way t…
“I have read your book and its terrible documentation with deepest emotion. I cannot describe the mixed feeling of abhorrence and loathing which has filled my heart while perusing these records of human degradation and abominable cruelty. . . . To keep quiet would serve only the moral indifference of the world . . . You have done your duty in publishing this book and bringing these facts to light.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cited in Awake! magazine, 1995, 8/22; article: The Evils of Nazism Exposed.
“Did you read [Holly Near's book]? Let me save you the trouble. This is the most exciting sentence in the book: ..."I feel like a lesbian when I'm making love to a woman." Gooooooooood, Holly! Well, the major difference between me and Holly Near is that I feel like a lesbian when I am BREATHING!”
Lea DeLaria (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music is a mysterious mathematical process whose elements are part of Infinity. … There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little — the book of Nature.”
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (1996) by Don Michael Randel
“The book that I shall make people read is the book of the heart, which holds the key to the mystery of life.”
Meher Baba (1894–1969) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part of his public message upon arrival on his second visit to America (19 May 1932).
“When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?”
George Will (born 1941) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Column, September 14, 2006, "Dems Vs. Wal-mart" at jewishworldreview.com.
“I don't know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don't know where the book is, and maybe I couldn't read it if I found it.”
Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) said by 1923 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to Judson Welliver, as quoted in Francis Russell (1968) The Shadow of Blooming Grove.
“I found that I had written a book which even bankers' daughters could read and weep over and feel good about. I swore to myself that if I every wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears.”
Richard Wright (1908–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.”
Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My book is written, as befits such easy material, in merciless telegram style ("Axiom," "Definition," "Theorem," "Proof," occasionally "Preliminary Remark")... I hope I have written this book in such a way that a normal student can read it in two days. And then (since he already knows the formal rules from school) he may forget its contents.”
Edmund Landau (1877–1938) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Grundlagen der Analysis [Foundations of Analysis] (1930) Preface for the Teacher, as quoted by Eli Maor, Trigonometric Delights (2013)
“F.Shaw: As prolific as you are, how long did it take you to research and write this book? A.Axelrod: Well over a year. I do my research for one book while I write another—that way I get to read as well as write.”
Alan Axelrod (born 1952) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alan Axelrod in an interview with Frank R. Shaw, Aug 23, 2007.