Quotes about reading

A collection of quotes on the topic of reading.

„That individual who reads useful books is no longer on the same plane of thinking as those who neglected them.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Books, Thinking

„A musician is similar to someone who wrote a letter to the loved one. Then decided to read it out loud instead of sending it.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Love

„Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.“

— Katherine Paterson American children's writer born and mainly raised in China 1932

Freedom, Secret, Life

„On May 27, the New York Times published one of the most incredible sentences I’ve ever seen. They ran an article about the Nixon-Kissinger interchanges. Kissinger fought very hard through the courts to try to prevent it, but the courts permitted it. You read through it, and you see the following statement embedded in it. Nixon at one point informs Kissinger, his right-hand Eichmann, that he wanted bombing of Cambodia. And Kissinger loyally transmits the order to the Pentagon to carry out "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves." That is the most explicit call for what we call genocide when other people do it that I’ve ever seen in the historical record. Right at this moment there is a prosecution of Milošević going on in the international tribunal, and the prosecutors are kind of hampered because they can’t find direct orders, or a direct connection even, linking Milošević to any atrocities on the ground. Suppose they found a statement like this. Suppose a document came out from Milošević saying, "Reduce Kosovo to rubble. Anything that flies on anything that moves."“

— Noam Chomsky american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

They would be overjoyed. The trial would be over. He would be sent away for multiple life sentences - if it was a U.S. trial, immediately the electric chair.
Interview by David Barsamian on Alternative Radio, June 11, 2004 http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/chomsky.shtml
Quotes 2000s, 2004

Time, People, Life

„People who are emotionally adapt — who know and manage their feelings well, and who read and deal effectively with other people's feelings — are at an advantage in any domain in life, whether in romance and intimate relationships or picking up the unspoken rules that govern success in organizational politics.“

— Daniel Goleman American psychologist & journalist 1946

Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1995), p. 36

Success, Feeling, People, Life

„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

Thinking, Books, People

„When I was 15 or so, I stumbled on literature related to Indian spirituality, and instantly felt that there was something that held essential keys. I read several of the great masters, something of India's ancient literature, and finally decided that Sri Aurobindo's view of life and the world was what I was looking for. It was not a passing craze or a 'New Age' fad; it not only satisfied the intellect but also touched the core of the being.“

— Michel Danino Indian writer 1956

On Sri Aurobindo, as quoted in " The Sarasvati was more sacred than Ganga http://www.rediff.com/news/report/interview-with-michel-danino/20100522.htm", Rediff (22 May 2010)

Literature, World, Age, Life

„That a deep-rooted feeling of discontent pervades the masses, none can deny; that there is a just cause for it, must be admitted. The old cry, “These agitators are stirring up a feeling of dissatisfaction among working men and they should be suppressed,” will not avail now. Every thinking person knows that the agitator did not throw two millions of men out of employment. The man that reads such paragraphs as this will not lay the blame of it at the door of the agitator:
“Mrs. Sarah Jane Geary, an Englishwoman, residing in this city, committed suicide a few days since. Her husband is a miner, and, owing to the frequent suspensions of business in the mines during the past winter, his meager earnings were insufficient to support the family. The fact preyed on Mrs. Geary’s mind, and she resolved to end her life, that her children might receive her share of the food, otherwise they would go hungry.”“

— Terence V. Powderly American mayor 1849 - 1924

"The Army of the Discontented," http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nora;cc=nora;g=moagrp;xc=1;q1=The%20Army%20of%20the%20Discontented;rgn=full%20text;cite1=Powderly;cite1restrict=author;view=image;seq=0381;idno=nora0140-4;node=nora0140-4%3A8 North American Review, vol. 140, whole no. 341 (April 1885), p. 371.

Cry, Personality, Past, Winter

„When people asked what I wanted to be, I'd tell them a writer. They were surprised or indifferent. If people don't read, what is a writer?“

— Tomás Rivera American academic 1935 - 1984

On his wanting to become a writer at an early age in " From Poverty to Power: The Inspiring Story of Tomas Rivera http://www.teenink.com/nonfiction/academic/article/778847/From-Poverty-to-Power-The-Inspiring-Story-of-Tomas-Rivera" (TeenInk)

People, Indifference

„I was just reading some poetry, and it talked about how things start as one thing and change into another, and I just thought, what a great concept for a song.“

— Tommy Lee American drummer 1962

http://www.drdrew.com/article.asp?id=393.

Change

„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 American writer 1880 - 1966

Kathleen Norris, on the publication of her seventy-eighth book, as cited in: James Charlton. The Writer's quotation book. 1985. p. 34

Cry, Thinking, Mountain, Feeling

„What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also the creative impulse.“

— E.M. Forster English novelist 1879 - 1970

"Anonymity: An Enquiry"
Source: Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Birth, Literature

„The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.“

— Immanuel Kant German philosopher 1724 - 1804

Past, Books

„The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.“

— Alvin Toffler American writer 1928 - 2016

Learning

„All innovators, logically speaking, have been Futurists in relation to their time. Palestrina would have thought that Bach was crazy, and Bach would have thought Beethoven the same, and Beethoven would have thought Wagner equally so.
Rossini liked to boast that he had finally understood the music of Wagner—by reading it backward; Verdi, after listening to the overture to Tannhäuser, wrote to a friend that Wagner was mad.
So we stand at the window of a glorious mental hospital, even while we unhesitatingly declare that counterpoint and the fugue, which even today are still considered the most important branches of musical instruction…“

— Francesco Balilla Pratella Italian composer 1880 - 1955

Original text:
Tutti gli innovatori sono stati logicamente futuristi, in relazione ai loro tempi. Palestrina avrebbe giudicato pazzo Bach, e così Bach avrebbe giudicato Beethoven, e così Beethoven avrebbe giudicato Wagner.
Rossini si vantava di aver finalmente capito la musica di Wagner leggendola a rovescio! Verdi, dopo un’audizione dell’ouverture del Tannhäuser, in una lettera a un suo amico chiamava Wagner matto.
Siamo dunque alla finestra di un manicomio glorioso, mentre dichiariamo, senza esitare, che il contrappunto e la fuga, ancor oggi considerati come il ramo più importante dell’insegnamento musicale...
Source: Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music (1911), p. 80

Madness, Time, Music