“Loads of children read books about dinosaurs, underwater monsters, dragons, witches, aliens, and robots. Essentially, the people who read SF, fantasy and horror haven't grown out of enjoying the strange and weird.”

— China Miéville

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China Miéville 102

English writer 1972

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“The reason that I like SF and fantasy and horror is that to me it's the pulp wing of surrealism.”

China Miéville (1972) English writer

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“I started reading SF when I was about twelve and I read all I could, so any author who was writing about that time, I read. But there's no doubt who got me off originally and that was A. E. van Vogt.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

As quoted in "Vertex Interviews Philip K. Dick" by Arthur Byron Cover, in Vertex, Vol. 1, no. 6 (February 1974) http://2010philipkdickfans.philipkdickfans.com/frank/vertexin.htm
Context: I started reading SF when I was about twelve and I read all I could, so any author who was writing about that time, I read. But there's no doubt who got me off originally and that was A. E. van Vogt. There was in van Vogt's writing a mysterious quality, and this was especially true in The World of Null A. All the parts of that book did not add up; all the ingredients did not make a coherency. Now some people are put off by that. They think that's sloppy and wrong, but the thing that fascinated me so much was that this resembled reality more than anybody else's writing inside or outside science fiction. … reality really is a mess, and yet it's exciting. The basic thing is, how frightened are you of chaos? And how happy are you with order? Van Vogt influenced me so much because he made me appreciate a mysterious chaotic quality in the universe which is not to be feared.

“It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I've always said that Watership Down is not a book for children. I say: it's a book, and anyone who wants to read it can read it.”

Richard Adams (1920–2016) English novelist best known as the author of Watership Down

“The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them. I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children.Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children's books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading…It's tosh. It's snobbery and it's foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories. A hackneyed, worn-out idea isn't hackneyed and worn out to them. This is the first time the child has encountered it. Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you.Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)

“The shelves of books we haven't written, like those of books we haven't read, stretches out into the darkness of the universal library's farthest space. We are always at the beginning of the beginning of the letter A.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Endpaper Pages, p. 309.
A History of Reading (1996)

“There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”

Annie Barrows book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Source: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

June 1857
Correspondence, Letters to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie

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