“I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence.”

—  Francis Spufford

Source: The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a rea…" by Francis Spufford?
Francis Spufford photo
Francis Spufford 1
British writer 1964

Related quotes

Edith Sitwell photo

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

As quoted in Reader's Digest Vol. 111, No. 666, (October 1977)

Yevgeny Yevtushenko photo

“I was overjoyed when I read Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar"; the poem astounded me. It astounded thousands of people…People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1932–2017) Russian poet, film director, teacher

Solomon Volkov (ed.), Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (New York: Limelight, 2006) pp. 158-9.
Criticism

Dmitri Shostakovich photo

“People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 159
Testimony (1979)

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“A word into the silence thrown always finds its echo somewhere where silence opens hidden lexicons.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Emily Dickinson http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/emily-dickinson-5/
From the poems written in English

“See, she goes places when she reads. I know all about that. When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.”

Rebecca Wells book Little Altars Everywhere

Source: Little Altars Everywhere

Anne Lamott photo

“Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“Read, read, read. That's all I can say.”

Carolyn Keene book The Secret of the Old Clock

Source: The Secret of the Old Clock

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Bk. IV, Ch. 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

Helen Oyeyemi photo

“Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's supposed to happen to people who read too much? How can you tell when someone's crossed the line.”

Helen Oyeyemi book Boy, Snow, Bird

Source: Boy, Snow, Bird

Nick Hornby photo

“When you're unhappy, I guess everything in the world - reading, eating, sleeping - has something buried somewhere inside it that just makes you unhappier.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

Related topics