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Reading quotes

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“People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” Francis Bacon, “The Essays of Francis Bacon” - 1597

“books are a uniquely portable magic.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“There is no enjoyment like reading!” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him.” Albert Einstein, “The world as I see it” - 1949

“Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly—they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can't consume much if you sit still and read books.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.” Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” - 1862

“From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” Francis Bacon, “The Essays of Francis Bacon” - 1597

“Books are like imprisoned souls until some one takes them down from a shelf and reads them.” Samuel Butler, “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler” - 1912

“And so he learned to read. From then on his progress was rapid.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes” - 1912

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“Fools admire everything in an author of reputation. For my part, I read only to please myself.” Voltaire, “Candide” - 1759

“I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.” Margaret Atwood, “The Blind Assassin” - 2000

“I wanted to read all these books, but I would have to have been in a rest home or something in order to do that.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use reading it at all.” Oscar Wilde, “Intentions” - 1891

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often returned with two.” Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” - 1862

“'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.” Mark Twain, “Following the Equator” - 1897

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” George R. R. Martin, “A Dance with Dragons” - 2011

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“The best books . . . are those that tell you what you know already.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?” Oscar Wilde, “De Profundis” - 1905

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“It is only a novel . . . or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and...” Jane Austen, “Northanger Abbey” - 1817

“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“It was a joy. Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “Over the Teacups” - 1891

“any one who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, with extravagant enthusiasm.” Virginia Woolf, “Jacob's Room” - 1922

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!” Henry David Thoreau, “Walden” - 1854

“reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren’t prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior books, when we can read superior books for nothing.” Edward Bulwer-Lytton, “The Coming Race” - 1871

“If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“reading had changed forever the course of my life.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.” William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” - 1623

“How well he's read, to reason against reading!” William Shakespeare, “Love's Labour's Lost” - 1598

“He read the verses backwards but then they were not poetry.” James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” - 1916

“When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.” Theodore Roosevelt, “Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography” - 1913

“Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary.” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language;...” Jonathan Swift, “Gulliver's Travels” - 1726

Related topics

books writing book life change work knowledge friendship happiness words amusement imagination libraries enjoyment magic learning culture author mind reason

Related authors

Stephen King (10)
Jane Austen (5)
Oscar Wilde (5)
Malcolm X (3)
Haruki Murakami (3)
William Shakespeare (2)
James Joyce (2)
John Green (2)
Aldous Huxley (2)
Victor Hugo (2)
Benjamin Franklin (2)
Francis Bacon (2)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (2)
J. D. Salinger (2)
Oprah Winfrey (2)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
Mark Twain (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
George Orwell (1)

Related sources

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (10)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (3)
Northanger Abbey (2)
Pride and Prejudice (2)
The Importance of Being Earnest (2)
Brave New World (2)
Les Misérables (2)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (2)
The Essays of Francis Bacon (2)
Tarzan of the Apes (2)
Norwegian Wood (2)
The Catcher in the Rye (2)
What I Know For Sure (2)
The Tempest (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1)
Love's Labour's Lost (1)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1)
1984 (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)

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