“I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.”

“Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“In the same book (I Am Not Spock), I said if I was given a chance to identify with any character on television, I would choose Spock. I admire him, I like him and I respect him. I would rather be identified with Spock than any other character on television. But the mistake I made was in using that title, ‘I Am Not Spock,’ as the title of the book. People assumed I was rejecting Spock and Star Trek but they didn’t read the book. If you read the book, you’ll find quite the opposite.”

Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer

“I do not feel obliged in my reading. I read to be entertained and to relax, and to go into another world, not because it's good for me.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

“I have finished To Kill a Mockingbird. It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another book.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

“Every new book I read comes to be a part of that overall and unitary book that is the sum of my readings… if you need little to set the imagination going, I require even less: the promise of reading is enough.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

“I'm really concerned about the quality of education in the United States. I think it's going down, and I don't think we spend enough money on it. It's unhealthy for our society that we remove ourselves more and more every day from books, from reading, from writing. All areas of education need more emphasis. I think we're a bit lazy here in America. I believe in the ideal of the classic liberal education, and I also think athletics are very important to the education of young people.”

Tommy Lee Jones (1946) American actor and film director

“I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read—and that’s a lot of books these days. If I weren’t out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity—because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

“Teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and for education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker