Quotes about reading
page 16

Cyril Connolly photo

“Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once, and they require separate techniques.”

Source: Enemies of Promise (1938), Part 1: Predicament, Ch. 3: The Challenge of the Mandarins (p. 19)

Dr. Seuss photo

“I can read in red.
I can read in blue.
I can read in pickle color too.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Source: I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

Jerome K. Jerome photo
Kate DiCamillo photo
John Steinbeck photo
Bill Cosby photo

“The worst thing to do is to die while reading LIFE magazine.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist
Anthony Kiedis photo
Gabriel García Márquez photo

“I don't have a method. All I do is read a lot, think a lot, and rewrite constantly. It's not a scientific thing.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Source: Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez

Sara Shepard photo
Kate DiCamillo photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“The less we read, the more harmful it is what we read.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
Edward R. Tufte photo
Robert Jordan photo

“Read and find out.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer
Warren Ellis photo
William Styron photo

“A good book should leave you…. slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.”

William Styron (1925–2006) American novelist and essayist

Interview in Writers at Work, First Series (1958), edited by George Plimpton
Variant: A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.
Source: Conversations with William Styron

Margaret Atwood photo
Jonathan Maberry photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
Francis Bacon photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Agatha Christie photo
Gustave Flaubert photo
James Patterson photo

“I plan to learn enough to read you like a book.”

Sylvia Brownrigg (1964) American writer

Source: Pages for You

Jorge Luis Borges photo
Jodi Picoult photo
René Descartes photo
Chelsea Handler photo
Stephen King photo
Ray Bradbury photo

“In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, your sense of shape and size in the world.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

Jeff Lindsay photo
Maggie O'Farrell photo
George W. Bush photo
Rick Riordan photo
Laura Lippman photo
Martha Graham photo

“Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

I Am A Dancer (1952)
Context: The body is shaped, disciplined, honoured, and in time, trusted. The movement becomes clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life — the law which governs the outer aspects.

Judy Blume photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“Read not the Times, read the Eternities.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Joss Whedon photo

“I fix myself a hot chocolate because it is a gateway drug to reading.”

Helen Ellis (1950) American writer

Source: American Housewife

Jerry Seinfeld photo
James Patterson photo
James Joyce photo
Italo Calvino photo

“Today each of you is the object of the other’s reading, one reads in the other the unwritten story.”

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

Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Nicholas Sparks photo
Karl Barth photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Henry James photo
Henry Ford photo
Alison Bechdel photo
Shane Claiborne photo
Edmund Burke photo
Susanna Clarke photo
Garrison Keillor photo
Rick Riordan photo
Meg Wolitzer photo
Alice Walker photo
John Waters photo
Eugene Field photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Derek Landy photo

“You've been reading Gordan's book again, haven't you?"
"It's a white-knuckle roller-coaster ride," she mumbled.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

Penn Jillette photo
Melissa de la Cruz photo
Louise Penny photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“So much working, reading, thinking, living to do! A lifetime is not long enough.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Nick Hornby photo
Jane Smiley photo

“It's only adults who read the top layers most of the time. I think children read the internal meanings of everything.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Source: The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to Present

“Reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes